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/^5^ NOTES 



FROM 



PLYMOUTH PULPIT: 



A COLLECTION OF MEMORABLE PASSAGES 
FROM THE DISCOURSES OF 



HENRY WARd'IjEECHER. 



WITH A SKETCH OF 

MR. BEECIIER AND THE IE CTURE-ROOM, 

By AUGUSTA MOORE. 

Wcto SETiftton. KebisEli nnU eSreatli; HnlarjjETJ. 

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N V. W Y O n K : 
HARPER cfc BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 

F li A N K I. 1 N « (I U A U V.. 

1 8 G 5. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and sixty five, by 

AUGUSTA MOORE, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 



3 ^3 c^ 




INTRODUCTION, 

BY 

REV. HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



The Pulpit Notes of Miss Moore were origin- 
ally publislied without my revision or inspection, 
but with my consent. They have been far more gen- 
erally circulated in Great Britain than in my own 
country. Indeed, there they are bound up with 
"Life Thoughts" as a second part of that work. 

Having proved themselves useful, I am pleased to 
know that, under the care of another publisher, they 
are to be put into circulation again. 

Henry Ward Beecher. 

Brooklyn, :\rny 3, 1865. 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

When Henry Ward Beecher is dead, there will be 
made a great effort to learn just how he looked and acted, 
as well as just what he said. 

And perhaps it will fall out, in his case, as it has in 
regard to many others of renown, that with much labor 
and with heavy cost, men shall succeed in discovering 
nothing very definite or reliable. 

It is easy to enumerate the points in a man's personal 
appearance, if that were all. Mr. Beecher is of medium 
height, is full in flesh, has a strong, well developed frame ; 
every organ is active and healthy. He has full command 
of his limbs, which are pliant and supple as a child's ; his 
body is as elastic as an india-rubber ball, and handled 
by him with about as much ease as he would toss about 
a ball. His face is full and fresh ; his eyes large, expres- 
sive, and blue — sometimes grey ; his forehead is square 
and broad, his hair brown, and worn long ; his glance 
quick, keen, and discerning ; his smile humorous and 
pleasant. 

Who, now, that has not seen the man, can tell how he 

appears to the eye that actually beholds him ? and who 

can ever gather from such points the endless variety in a 

man's appearance ? 

A 



n HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

To describe Air. Beecher's mind, there are not half a 
dozen writers in the country who could be trusted ; and 
only the pen or the brush of a master could do anything 
like justice to his mere physical maa, Would that there 
might arise, betimes, some efficient limner. 

Like the mountains of which Mr. Beecher delights to 
talk, he has numberless diverse moods and aspects. Like 
them, he is sometimes cloudy and obscured ; and some- 
times, like them, he stands out bold and clear, in the full 
light of noon. 

Never was human face more variable ; of no one that 
ever lived could it more emphatically be said, " On differ- 
ent days he looks a different man." 

At one time, and in one mood, his face is red, his eyes 
dull and half covered with the swollen flesh of the heavy 
lids. There is no brightness to be seen about him ; no 
briskness of motion, no erectness or strength of posi- 
tion. The animal nature has gained temporary ascend- 
ency over the spiritual, and an enemy might be expected 
to describe Mr. Beecher as an unrefined ploughboy, 
or a butcher in a minister's clothes, or rather, in a 
minister's desk, for Mr. Beecher's clothes are n-ot minis- 
terial. 

But let the enemy wait until he sees our mountain in its 
more usual aspect. 'Let him wait until the strong, and 
perhaps somewhat rough and rugged intellect has stirred 
itself, and arisen for action, till the torpedo-like heart is 
on fire, till the fervid words burst forth, and the face, but 
now so dull, begins to shine with the interior glory. 



HENKY WARD BEECUEK. Hi 

Then comes the transfiguration I The material shrinks 
from sight, and the spiritual beams forth, causing in his 
countenance a change almost inconceivable. His face 
assumes all the rich softness of a mezzotint engraving — 
round, fair, and dimpled you now perceive it to be ; and 
ite whole expression becomes pure and elevated, almost 
like the angels' faces that we have seen in dreams. 

His forehead is white and high, and shines like the 
brow of a sun-touched mountain ; his eyes beam clear and 
mild, now with the strength of the man, again with love 
and innocence, like the eyes of a babe ; his close-shaven 
chin, and the lower part of his cheeks are shaded, as if by 
the brush of an artist ; there is no longer a rugged line, 
or a rough look about him, his aspect is altogether noble, 
beautiful, serene. 

This, until he stands forth as Boanerges, and then he is 
the mountain in a winter storm. Mingling in his tones, 
are heard reminders of the cataract, and of the crash of 
thunder ; while his flashing eyes and changing features 
have upon you the effect of lightning, and his gestures 
represent the rushing wind. Then, while you are yet 
thrilling to the sweep of the storm, you are melted to 
tears by some sorrow, or some longing, started into 
new life by the magic tenderness of tones silvery 
Bweet. 

Mr. Beecher's voice alone is a wonderful power. It 
mingles in its various utterances, all loud, and wild, and 
awful tones, with the sound of fairy harpstrings, and the 
chime of bells. It has the hi>h battle-call of the trum- 



IV HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

pet or the clarion, and all the touching gentleness of a 
mother's cradle hymn. 

A man whose voice combines the three sorts of power 
with which the three following sentences were spoken, 
has in his possession an engine fitted to move the world : 

** When they come forth from their graves — whe* 
from mountain, from valley, and from the dark waves of 
the sea, they lift up their blanched faces to their Judge 
they will be speechless." 

''Butterflies, the interior spirit of rainbows, sent down 
to salute those kisses of the seasons on the ground- 
flowers/' 

''Women, who have such need of love, ought not to 
find it hard to come to Jesus Christ, and put their arms 
about his neck, and tell him, with gushing love, that they 
give themselves, body and soul, into his keeping.'^ 

What has been said and written of Dr. Chalmers' pul- 
pit appearance, manners, and diction, reminds one very 
forcibly of Mr. Beecher. As plain " in dress and gait " 
as was that celebrated preacher, and as impressive in 
discourse as he, is the subject of this sketch. Alike in 
plainness of speech, in intense earnestness, in quick and 
deep emotion, in apt and striking imagery and illustration, 
are the sermons of these two men — Men. Alike, in 
the sermons of each, when at full flood, deep calls unto 
deep, spirit speaks to spirit, and the hearer almost forgets 
that he yet wears the veil, and dwells amid the false and 
deceptive scenes of the flesh. Often it seems as if the 
judgment were already set, and the hearer there. Few 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. V 

indeed, are the preachers who have power to strike di- 
rectly to the heart; to lay hold with such forcible and 
tenacious grafip upon the moral sense, as does Henry 
Ward Beecher. Every man's soul may be reached in 
some way, and Mr. Beecher knows the open path. Let 
that man who does not wish his conscience roused, his 
nerves thrilled, and his tears started, keep away from the 
genuine and impassioned power of truth, as presented — 
as thrust in upon men's souls, by Henry Ward Beecher. 

A cold, polished, cynical man of the world, going one 
evening, at the invitation of a lady, to Plymouth Church, 
remarked upon his way, " I go to hear Henry Ward 
Beecher with the same feelings that I go to witness the 
performances of Burton." 

The sermon that night, though not one of Mr. Beecher's 
greatest efforts, was a powerful one, appealing to man's 
own consciousness of sin and ill desert ; every word told. 
There was no escape. It was extempore, only the heads 
thoroughly analyzed and accurately worded, being written 
out. The speaker's logic, at which the visitor had seemed 
inclined to sneer, was perfect ; and his presentation of 
the truth was truly appalling to all out of Christ. 

The face of the gentleman who thought he was going 
to be amused that evening, belied his feelings if he icas 
amused. 

The aptness of Mr. Beecher's comparisons ; the acute- 
ness with which he lays the knife to what 7ieeds cutting ; 
the unexpected descents which he makes upon errors of 
thought nnd conduct, frequently excite irresistible laugh- 



VI HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ter. From this fact, those that lie in wait seeking how 
they may harm him, have represented him in the light of 
a clerical buffoon. Nothing can be more entirely or 
malignantly false. He is as far from levity and irrever- 
ence as those who purposely malign him are from noble- 
ness and honesty. Gravity sits upon him with a native 
grace. 

But his imagination is so rich and strong, his flow of 
language is so great, and the heart that beats like a great 
hammer in his breast, is such a volcanic heart, so impetu- 
ous, so prone to overflow, that he does sometimes lose the 
reins of prudence. He is occasionally like a man who 
has struck his foot so hard against a stone, that, to save 
himself from falling on his face, he needs vmst run awhile, 
though every step be upon vipers. The temperament 
which God gave a man must be considered in judging of 
him ; and considering that of Mr. Beecher, also the mul- 
titude of things that he has said, and is forever saying ; 
and the pressure of the various extreme excitements which 
are upon him ; it is a proof that he possesses a remark- 
able share of discretion and common sense that he has 
said so few imprudent things as he has said. 

Mr. Beecher is frequently humorous, both in tone and 
expression, when he is altogether unaware that he is so. 
It is conceded that, great as is this orator, and nobly as 
truth and earnestness are stamped on all that he says and 
does, that master as he is of gesture and expression, there 
still is hovering about him somewhat of the ludicrous. 

Certain notions he has which alwavs incline one to 



HENRY WARD BEECIIER. VU 

smile. The wag of his head when he is about to diach 
an argument ; the shake of his elbows and his knees, 
when he knows that he has you penned ; the eager- 
ness with which he seizes upon that devoted handkerchief, 
when he is about to '* charge f the strength with which, 
as he commences his tilt, he squeezes it (turning his hand- 
palm towards his chair and back towards the desk, leaning 
on knuckles and thumb, one foot crossed over the other, 
and supported upon its toe) ; the force with which he throws 
it from him, as he comes forward to close in the conflict 
he has waged ; are all manoeuvres certain to be repeated, 
almost constantly; and one cannot avoid being amused 
by seeing them so unconsciously, yet energetically, per- 
formed. 

Although Mr. Beecher himself seldom appears to be in 
much haste, there is always an air of being in a hurry 
about his clothes and his hair. They manifest inten- 
tions of going forward, whether he goes or remains 
standing still, His neck is so short that he never ven- 
tures a standing-up collar. This, probably, in considera- 
tion for his ears. 

One very remarkable singularity in his face is the utter 
incongruity between its front and its side views. Upon being 
told that he resembled Henry Ward Beecher, a relative 
of that clergyman replied, laughinglyf *' I know that I am 
said to look like him ; but 'tis such resemblance as a sheep 
bears to a lion.'' Now the fact is, were that humble- 
minded relative of the famed "Lion" a great deal more 



X HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

business, a little rosy-faced girl stepped on to the plat> 
form, and holding out a bunch of white and red clover, 
said : *' Here, Mr. Beecher." He instantly bent towards 
the child, and taking the flowers, said in a pleased tone, 
and with a kind smile : " Thank you ; these smell like the 
country/' The child looked perfectly delighted as she 
darted away. The mystery and secret of Henry Ward 
Beecher's wonderful success as a preacher, may be ex- 
plained in his own words, which he applied to another : 
*' He preaches life-truths in life-forms, with the power of 
his life in their utterance.'^ 

He is not a greater man, not a more learned man, not 
a better man, than many other ministers who never can 
keep people awake. But he is more alive. Why ; there 
is intense life in all that, in desk or pulpit, he does or 
says. What wonder that he who is so vivid there should 
sometimes sog and smolder, when the excitement of his 
work is over. 

Many excellent Christian people, growing anxious lest 
the preaching of a man whose influence must necessarily 
be so great and wide should be pernicious, take long jour- 
neys for the object of satisfying themselves of the truth 
of the matter. Hardly a Sabbath passes in which several 
of these intent and anxious faces cannot be seen, narrowly 
regarding the minister, as, all unconscious of them, he 
delivers his message for the day. 

Although every now and then, such good people get 
some remark which causes them to look a little doubtful, 
their faces clear before the sermon is over ; and when the 



HENRY WARD BEKCHER. XI 

final prayer is ended, and the final hymn sung, they go 
away praising God for the good that he is accomplishing 
through the instrumentality of the man whose influence 
they had feared. 

The whole country knows that the singing of Plymouth 
Church is Congregational. It knows also that some of 
the hymns sung there are those that are forbidden to 
many orthodox and dignified churches. But too great a 
price is often paid for dignity. Not all the dignity on 
earth is worth the feelings with which the thousands of 
that great congregation, standing up together, sing joy- 
fully the hymn commencing — 

" Amazing grace ! how sweet the sound," etc. 

and its chorus (in which even the children join) of 

" Oh ! that will be joyful to meet to part no more." 

and then listen to the parting blessing of their pastor — 
''And until that blessed day, to which he is bringing us 
on, may the blessing of God be with us ; and the glory 
shall be given to the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, Amen." 

No man can be truly great whose central life-purpose is 
to be great. Selfish ambition is certain death to those 
principles which give men immortality. Love to God, or 
love to man, or both of these, must lie at the foundations 
of all true fame. For the sake of preaching the Gospel — 
the Gospel of redemption and of freedom — Henry Ward 
Beecher lives; for this sake he would die. This is his pur- 



Xll HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

pose; and into this work he throws all that there is in 
him, and all that he, by seeking throughout the height 
and depth of life, can obtain. 

That he has stood — that he is standing — where the 
temptation to pride and self-conceit is strong, he knows 
well; and with all his heart he has besought the Lord to 
keep him clothed in the garments of humilitj. Year 
after year the multitudes throng him; they press around 
him, till the place that holds him is too strait for them. 
They hang upon his words, they love him, they revere 
him. The man is not deaf nor blind; his heart is not a 
stone, and it needs no philosopher to say that in his posi- 
tion only the grace of God can keep a man humble, and 
without any affectations of vanity. The Lord has heard 
the prayer of his servant. The ^' Mountain '^ knows that 
it is high; the "" Lion " knows that he is strong. It would 
be mere affectation to deny that; but though he has pro- 
per self-respect, it is well proportioned and justly com- 
bined with self-abnegation. No man forgets himself more, 
or regards himself more soberly, than does Henry Ward 
Beecher. 

This is the opposite of what was feared in the beginning 
of his course. 

Ten — eleven years ago, when first people began to 
talk of the great numbers Henry Ward Beecher was 
drawing, there were remarks like the following made : 

'' It's a new thiug; people will run after novelties.'' 

'' It won't last long, depend on that. These young 
guns burst suddenly —vanity charges them too heavily." 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. XI 1 1 

^* Oh it's more the name of Beecher than anything 
else." 

''He is the tail end of the heap ; he never would 
study." 

'' Any man that has tact and boldness, and that knows 
how to swell, can draw a crowd for a while." 

And Rev. Dr. Shepard, of the Theological Seminary 
in Bangor, Maine, remarked, '' If Mr. Beecher continues 
to draw so large a congregation for six years, he will 
prove himself a remarkable man." And now, having seen 
how the matter turned, that heroic divine (heroic in the 
fullest sense of the word, for men who would not fear to 
die in battle, or to risk hfe in other ways, often lack hero- 
ism to stick to their post when money beckons them away), 
who excels as scholar, preacher, and critic, has become a 
hearty approver and admirer of Mr. Beecher. It needs 
no more than this to show that the feet of the pastor of 
Plymouth Church stand on firm and solid ground. 

He has his faults, and they are numerous, and not too 
small to be seen with the naked eye. Perhaps the very 
reason why he so admires gentleness, is because he has 
not in his own disposition overmuch of that quality. But 
of his faults there are sufiScient who are ready to speak, 
and to rejoice in them. Well, as he says, " There always 
will be persons who have in them the carrion nature." 
Such as their pastor is, with all his glorious powers, or 
with reactive dullness, with all his virtues, and with all 
his faults, his people love him. 

They have, however, one cause of regret in regard to 



XIV HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

him. Mr. Beecher is a sound and vigorous man, physi- 
cally ; but he cannot last always — he, as well as others, 
must die ; and where is the material that shall live after 
him ? that shall show to the future world what a man once 
lived and died ? He is now forty-six years old, and not 
yet are prepared the witnesses which shall speak for him 
after he has gone hence. Full measure, pressed down, 
running over, has his life ever given ; but will he be of 
their number whose dyuig is but an endless multiplying of 
their life ? His sermons, matchless as they are, are sel- 
dom fully written out ; and no mortal hand but his own 
can properly retouch them. Hitherto, he ha^ not, except 
in one or two instances, given to the world proof of what 
he is. In his pulpit — on his own platform — he is seen and 
known — known to such as have listened to him often — for 
no man can judge of Henry Ward Beecher from one or two 
sermons. No crystal was ever so many sided as he; all sides 
so bright and pure ; but abroad, where he goes to kcture, 
they neither see nor hear him. Oh ! that his platform 
had a tongue ! or better, that it knew to use the pen ; then 
would be manifested, before all the world, the splendor 
and the power ; the yearning love, the crushing wrath, 
the thunderous denunciations, the resistless appeals, the 
originality, the logic, the analysis, the heroism, the phi- 
losophy, which render this man unsurpassed in setting 
forth the truths of the Religion of Christ. 

Henry Ward Beecher came of a goodly stock ; Welsh 
blood, with its poetry and music, flows in his veins. 
He is indeed a poet ; though it is not known that ever in 



HENRY WARD BEECHER. XV 

his life he made one line to rhyme with another. But get 
him before a fine painting, and see the poetic frenzy that 
comes mightily upon him there. 

He is not much gifted with prudence in the use of mo- 
ney ; and is so generous towards those that have need of 
his aid, that, as a gentleman of his congregation remarked, 
when there was talk in regard to raising his salary : 
'' Three thousand dollars % year is, as far as his own inte- 
rest is concerned, just as good as ten thousand ; for he has 
nothing, now, when the end of the year comes ; and he 
would have no more then.'' 

Kor are all his gifts public ones. To the unknown poor 
he does good ; they who have sat in great darkness, and 
whom he knew but little more of than this, that they were 
in trouble and want, have known his ready generosity. 
Such persons know that it i^ from the impulse of his heart, 
and not to gain a name for benevolence, that Henry Ward 
Boecher does good with his money. 



THE LECTURE-ROOM. 



The Lecture-room of Plymouth Church is entered 
from both ends, and is capable of seating about 
four hundred persons. Mr. Beecher's desk stands 
directly before the door at which he always enters. 
Between the desk and the door is a high and wide 
white screen of boards. Towards this screen all 
eyes are directed, from the time the people are 
assembled until the pastor appears. The meetings 
are always well attended — generally they are 
crowded ; and better or more interesting prayer 
and conference meetings there are not. People 
flock to them with a real, living pleasure, which is 
printed upon their features. A sensation of glad- 
ness is always experienced when the pastor's face 
appears. 

Taking his seat, Mr. Beecher gives out a hymn, 
and then calls upon some brother to pray. This is 
three times repeated. The hymns are not read, 
unless one happens to strike with peculiar force the 



9 
THE LECTURE-ROOM. XVJi 



pastor or some brother ; or unless it set to ringing 
some ''silver bell" in Mr. Beecher's heart; in 
which case he reads it, in his own touching man- 
ner, 
i After the third prayer the meeting is open for 
i remarks ; and speakers are heard from various 
i parts of the room. The brethren make known 
' an experience, a want, or they ask a question. 
! Anything practical the pastor is glad to hear. 
'; " Anything," as he says, " that has life in it." 
\ And when one takes into consideration the 
'J transcendent prayer and conference-meeting apti- 
', tude of the pastor, it is really astonishing with what 
'j freedom the most halting and uneducated persons 
1 rise up, and unabashed before him, express their 
' minds, and open their feelings. 

Strangers attending the meetings are prone to 
think that, after hearing the pastor talk, no one 
else would dare to open his mouth. But Mr. 
Beecher's aim is to encourao'e and draw out the 
humble and stammering disciple, and in this he suc- 
ceeds to admiration. The minister sits smiling in 
his seat, like a loved teacher ; and to him both old 
and young submit any question of duty or of doc- 
trine by which they are exercised. He is faithful 
to warn, exhort, check, or encourage ; and his 
power of applying cures to right places seems, 
^1 sometimes, well-nigh miraculous. It is a t>trange 



Xvili THE LECTURE-ROOM. 

thing to see old, grey-headed men arise aud ask 
that comparatively young one, of things too deep 
for their understanding ; and stranger still is it to 
hear how, without a moment's hesitation, the young 
one pours light upon the whole subject, while the 
inquirer sinks to his seat silent and satisfied. 

When a man stands up and begins, after a dead 
and formal manner, to make a long, set exhortation 
upon generalities, he is very liable to be requested 
to alter the tone of his remarks, or to make them 
brief. That brother will be liable to be asked if he 
thinks his religion renders him any more amiable 
than he was; if he is any more agreeable and 
patient in his family, any mo.re merciful and just 
with his clerks, any more upright and humble in 
every part of his life. Such home thrusts are useful 
in bringing people down from that convenient 
generality that we " are all great sinners," from 
reflections and remarks that hit no one, and help 
no one, and they fasten attention on particular 
points where attention is needed. 

But while canting exhortations and heartless 
prayers are thus discouraged, the most trembling 
lisper who really has a thing to say, and don't un- 
dertake to speak or pray merely from " a sense of 
duty," is kindly heard. If a timid beginner in the 
prayers and the language of Zion, break down in 
the midst of his utterance, instead of the dead 



il: 



THE LECTUKE-ROOM. XIX 

and awkward, the half killing silence, made appal- 
ling to the stammerer by exchanged glances and 
nods, perhaps, also, by smiles from those present, 
the word is instantly taken up by the pastor, or by 
some brother, and the distress of the young convert 
is covered and cured. 

Any one who has ever witnessed such scenes as 
have taken place within the last year, in some con- 
ference meetings, will know how fully to appreciate 
the delicacy and skill of management like this. 

People accustomed but to solemn faces in prayer- 
meetings, are frequently shocked at seeing a smile, 
or hearing a sound as of subdued laughter, go 
round the lecture-room of Plymouth Church. Well ; 
the charge that people laugh there cannot be de- 
nied ; they do. 

But the laughter of levity, or of trifling with 
things sacred, is not that which Mr. Beecher's re- 
marks excite, and he holds the strange belief that 
man was made to laugh, when he feels like it, even 
in the presence of God himself. And if there is a 
man or woman with a face so stiff as not to smile, 
or laugh outright, at the sudden and skillful hits 
made by Mr. Beecher at various faults and errors, 
surely it is not one that would be welcomed every- 
where with love and joy. 

Laugliter thus caused has oftentimes more power 
to send an evil into annihilation tlian twenty 



XX THE LECTURE-ROOM. 

years of grim and solemn argumentation T\^ouid 
have. 

A nickname well applied can paint a man better 
than any brush of artist. '* Go tell that Fox^'^ says 
Jesus, and what labored description could set He- 
rod more vividly before us ? 

It is a fact that Mr. Beecher cannot keep his face 
to that devout measure and expression which those 
who gravely censure him, so holily wear. 

The people smile at their pastor, and at each 
other, and he smiles at them. Thus there is 
sunshine at evening there. Anon they look at 
him with falling tears, and his own eyes fill, and 
the tears roll down as he speaks of Christ's love and 
pity, or of man's ingratitude. Certainly, if it is 
better to suppress all such signs of feeling, it is 
more painful, and those who sit side by side un- 
moved, while are poured the .prayer, the song, the 
entreaty, cannot love each other as they do who 
have, in their meetings, looked through smiles and 
tears, through sorrow and laughter, into each other's , 
very hearts. 

Since the coming hither of Dr. Lyman Beecher , 
the meetings have often been more interesting . 
than ever. He stands like a glorious old ruin, 
speaking of the good days of the past. And he 
utters a few words more of love and invitation to 
the world before he leaves its shores forever. 



THE LECTUEE-KOOM. Xxi 

How ardently he loved his work ! how he loves 
it now ! 

One night the subject of remark during con- 
ference was '' Looking unto Jesus." Mr. Beecher, 
with his usual power, had illustrated this looking, 
by the looking of a child towards its parents, a 
soldier to his officer, etc., and had then proceeded 
to show how much, greater encouragement one 
would take by looking unto Christ. Said he, " 'Tis 
hard to make people habitually do this, but far 
harder to cause them to realize that Jesus is actu- 
ally always looking upon them, I think that more 
, Christians, and the same one for a greater number 
of times, take comfort by what they do towards 
the Lord, than by what the Lord does towards 
them. "We know that we do, sometimes at least, 
jlook upwards, lovingly, confidingly ; but that he 
looks down on us with real, throbbing love, we 
can't seem to believe that. There are many rea- 
sons why this seems impossible. Our own con- 
sciousness of ill desert, our meanness, our coldness, 
'Our entire unloveliness, all appear to stand in the 
way of our being objects of love to him. Yet it 
was against this very feeling that he aimed his dis- 
rcourse in the chapter when^ he asks if an earthly 
parent will give his child a stone for bread, or a 
iBerpent for a fish, etc. We say, '^Oh, of course, an 
jiearthly parent would not deal so ; he must love his 



XXll THE LECTURE-KOOM. 

offspring, but God is different ; he is so far off", so 
much above us ; there may be reasons why he 
cannot regard us." ' 

Nay, but Christ twists the argument the other 
way, '• If ye^ being eyil, know how to give 
good gifts, etc. Is it because your child is good, 
and does all things to please you, that you give of 
your fullness to him ? Or is it because he is your 
oion^ and you love him ? Now you reach it, that 
is the manner of feeling which God has for all 
who once and heartily have given themselves to 
him. But don't you think that your poor, un- 
steady and imperfect love is more true and endur- 
ing than his. Out of his infinite goodness his love 
flows to us; the reasons for it are in his own 
nature, not in ours." 

Here the venerable Dr. Beecher rose and said : 
'' I want to say one thing about this looking of God. 
There must always be something to look at." 

He sat down. It was plain that the watchful 
Father in Zion feared that, from some omission in 
his son's remarks, the ignorant and foolish might 
take occasion to think, " We will do evil that love 
may abound." 

Mr. Beecher had been sitting in his chair, as his 
manner is when he speaks often, and but a few*! 
moments at a time, in the meetings ; but now he 
rose and moved aside his table. Bending forward 



THE LECTURE-ROO^. XXI ii 

over the edge of his platform, he said, ''I should 
like to know what He saw to look at when he so 
loved the world that he gave himself to die for it. 
When a man's back is towards God, and he is liat- 
ing him, I don't think that God ever sees that man's 
face. Even for such persons God's love is compas- 
sionate, though it cannot be the peculiar affection 
one feels for his own child ; but the moment that 
the man's face is turned towards God, the love of a 
father to his son is but a feeble sign of the infinite 
tenderness with which the Almighty Father regards 
him. It is the world that needs to be reconciled, 
not God." 

" That is just what I meant," said old Mr. 
Beecher. 

" I knew you did, father ; but I wanted them to 
understand it in my words too." 

At another time. Dr. Beecher hearing a blind 
brother, who rather inclined to the doctrine of per- 
fection, make some remarks to the effect that the 
way of perfection was the way of peace, rem.arked : 
''If we are to have no peace, and no sense of justi- 
fication, until we do love the Lord with all our 
lieart, and soul, and strength, and until we are 
conscious that we are free from offences, no man 
who knows his own heart can ever liave them. Tlie 
love of God is with liis children the paramount 
Hove, but never, till they get to heaven, will it bo 



XXIV THE LECTURE-KOOM. 

all that the command requires. Measuring our- 
selves by the law of absolute perfection, every man 
falls short every day. There are two sorts of per- 
fection by which God's creatures stand : one, the 
perfection of absolute obedience ; the other, the 
perfection of faith. By the first the angels stand, 
by the last stands man. Faith is counted to us for 
righteousness. Faith is shown by love and good 
works, but both of these are imperfect, and 
accepted only for Jesus' sake." 

'' This meeting," said Mr. Beecher at one time, 
" is the bellows which keeps the fire going, yonder 
in the Great Congregation. I am sure that more 
depends upon it than upon the Sunday service — at 
least without it the preaching would be almost 
powerless. This is a pleasant place — we all love it, 
I think that we can say, that here we have spent 
some of the happiest hours of our whole liyes/^ 



N O T E S 

FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 



There are two views of the Gospel, hoth of which 
some churches use. 

One view of it is, that it is a power which makes 
laws for the protection of all men who will quietly 
yield up their rights, and submit themselves to 
what will inevitably crush out of them their man- 
hood. 

The other view is, that the Gospel is a power 
which secures to man all the inherent rights of 
his nature, and which protects him in them. 

The first view regards men as mere passive bricks 
for the building of the palace of society, which is 
considered the important thing. The latter view 
considers society as the school for training indi- 
vidual men. 

Man is the most important thing created on the 
earth. Rulers, societies and systems are but liis 
servants and protectors. 

Tho c]iurch(^s are wclcouiu to wliich one of 



26 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

these views they like best. Thej shall not have 
both. I take the latter side, and declare that those 
who don't believe in it had better stop sending out 
Bibles. Thej had better stop ministers, at any 
rate such ones as I am ; for I preach hiowing that 
the Gospel is a bombshell in the midst of thrones, 
and a mine beneath every fortress of power whose 
strength is used against the people's rights instead 
of for them. 



Take from the Bible the Godship of Christ, and 
to me it would be but a heap of dust. I would as 
soon have all Egypt raked into a heap, wherein not 
a stone of its cities, nor a trace of its inhabitants 
could be found, as that book if its Christ be not 
God. 



Man is required to pour all that is in him — all 
of his life and love — into the bosom of Christ ; and 
when that is done, what is there left for God ? 



The man who, after having cast his care on 
Christ, goes to fretting and worrying himself about 
anything or anybody, is like one who, having pur- 
chased a through ticket from here to — anywhere, 
and receiving a check for his baggage, gets out of 
the car at the end of a mile or two, and, shoulder- 



LIVING- WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 27 

ing his trunk, starts to go the rest of the way alone. 
Christ never rolls back upon us burdens ihat we 
lay on him ; we take them back ourselves. 
What is a religion worth that will stay with a man 
in the sunshine, but clear out in a storm? The 
Christian has a right, and it is his duty, to be free 
from all care and anxiety. Let him lie on the pro- 
mises, and be at rest. " Oh ! but,'' says the doubt- 
ing, worrying disciple, '^ the promises are made to 
the righteous ; and I am so full of imperfections I 
dare not claim them." Well, brother, if you wait 
for that righteousness which is by the law, you'll 
never be able to rest on the promises ; but if you 
trust in Christ, that is counted to you for righteous- 
ness ; and your right to the comfort of the promises 
is as good as though you were as holy as an angel. 
Christ's love sweeps away the unworthiness of all 
w^ho sincerely love him. God has undertaken for 
you ; trust him, though you know not where to get 
your next supply of bread. 



That Christ does not hold men to proper and un- 
selfish motives when they come to him for healing, 
we may see by the cleansing of the nine seltish and 
ungrateful lepers. lie knew their dispositluns and 
motives, as well before as after he liad granted tlieir 
prayer. God alloios men to cry out to him from sel- 



28 LIVING WOEDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

fish fear ; and he never refuses to attend to any earnest 
cry. If he did not attend to such cries, or receive 
such persons, whom would he receive ? Dare any 
man lift up his face and say, "When Z cried unto 
God, I cried worthily, from pure and disinterested 
motives." The conditions are not '' Come with pure 
hearts and motives unto me ;" they are " Come, and 
your motives shall afterwards be made right." A 
true conversion will do that work. N"othing else 
will. If you are awake to your danger, if you see, 
at last, that your only hope is in Jesus, don't stop 
to examine your motives, or his willingness to 
receive you just as you are. Rush to his feet this 
moment. All that you cannot do, he can and will 
do. All that you now have to do is heartily to 
G07ne. Drop every hope and every dej^endence but 
Christ, and give your whole life and soul into his 
keeping. 

A TEAE, dropped in the silence of a sick chamber, 
often rings in heaven with a sound which belongs 
not to earthly trumpet or bells. 



God is more willing to give good gifts unto them 
that ask him, than men are to give them unto their 
children ! God could not have struck the founda- 
tion note of human desire squarer than he did by 
this declaration. 



LIVING WORDS FFwOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 29 

There is no honor toward God, either in tlie 
heart of man or woman. Suppose that I dared to 
go into a school and take some young maiden — one 
the least hackneyed in the ways of life, and, calling 
upon her the attention of all her companions and 
teachers, declare that her soul was base, mean and 
vulgar ; that she was without natural affection or 
human feeling ; that she regarded not the good of 
brother nor sister, and that she returned the affec- 
tion of father and mother with ingratitude and con- 
tempt. "Why! she would not for a moment bear 
such charges — she would die — she would suffocate 
with shame. Yet I stand here and I charge upon 
you young maidens, and young men — upon every 
one of you into whose eyes I look, if you have not 
given your hearts to Christ, conduct infinitely worse 
than this ; because 'tis towards one who is more to 
you than any earthly friend can possibly be. I 
charge upon you the meanest, the most base and 
unnatural conduct that can be imagined ; but you 
sit calmly under that^ you look me in the face and 
do not blush, and not a feeling of shame stirs in 
you, solely because this atrocious behavior is main- 
tained towards God ! 



I THINK that the outreaching of God'rf heart of 
love has more power in it than the beating of God's 
mark has. Love is miorhtier than indication. 



30 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

It makes a difference to God how we act. His 
happiness is affected by the conduct of his child- 
len; for his heart is the heart of a father. If, 
when mj child sins, a pang goes through my own 
SOUI5 and I fly to rescue him from further iniquity, 
it is because God struck into my breast a little 
spark of what in him is infinite. 



Some men are, in regard to ridicule, like tin- 
roofed buildings, in regard to hail — all tliat hits 
them bounds rattling off, not a stone goes through. 



CHRitT never stands rebuking before he pardons 
and helps the suppliant. 



God hates sin, because it destroys what he loves. 
He could live high and lifted up above all noise of 
man's groaning — all smoke of his torment ; but his 
nature is to come down after man — to grope for 
him amid all the dark polkitions of sin, and if pos- 
sible, to rescue and cleanse him. 

God hates sin very much as mothers hate wild 
beasts. One day a woman stood washing beside a 
stream. She was in a wild, frontier country, and 
the woods were all around. Her Jittle, only child 
was playing about near her. By and by she 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 31 

missed the infant's prattle, and looking about her 
called its name There was no answer. Alarmed, 
the mother ran to the house, but her babe was not 
there. In Wild distress the poor woman now fled 
to search the woods, and there she found her child. 
But it was only its little l)ody that she clasped to 
her heart. A wolf had seized her treasure, and 
when, at last, she rescued it from those bloody 
fangs, its spirit had gone. Oh ! how that mother 
hated wolves ! ! And do you know that this is the 
very figure Christ uses to show what feeling he 
has towards the sin that is seeking to devour his 
children ? 



W"hen we sin we are not going against a cold, 
unfeeling law; but are striking, with cruel hand, 
direct at the living, loving heart of God. 



"This loving God," you say; "I can't do it. 
ilow can I love infinity — omnipotence? I might 
as well try to love a cloud, or to try to embrace in 
my warm palpitating affections the vast expanse of 
ether." True, you cannot .love God — you cannot 
love this expansive, mysterious essence of omnipo- 
tence. God knows very well that you cannot, and 
for that reason among oUiers, he condescended to 
bring himself down to your capacity ; to come 



32 LIVING- WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

"within the reach of your affections in the person of 
Jesus Christ. ''God manifest in the flesh." From 
my soul I pity that man who goes behind Christ 
and seeks torfasten himself upon God unrevealed. 
As you say, he may as well seek to embrace with 
warm love the elastic and invisible air. But it is 
with Christ that we have to do, aud if you desire to 
fashion him to your mind that your heart may love 
liim, I will tell you- how. Sit down and read his 
/ife — not in parts ; not a chapter one day, and 
another the next ; nor a paragraph with your coat 
and hat at your elbow, ready to start for ISTew 
York; but read his life straight through, giving 
your mind and your heart time to take in the 
meaning of what you read. Thus you may view 
him in his loveliness, and your affections cannot 
fail of being touched. If you went into an artist's 
studio to look at the picture of some distinguished 
person of whose appearance you wished to get a 
clear idea, how do you think it would answer to 
have, at your first visit, all of that painted face 
except the forehead, covered? Looking at that a 
little while, you go away and come again the follow- 
ing day. The forehead is covered now, and the 
lower parts of the face, but the eyes are visible. 
You look at them a few moments and go away as 
before. The next day they give you a view of the 
nose, exclusively ; the next you beliold the upper 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 33 

lip; next they give you the lower lip, and fiDally 
the chin. Now you have seen the whole face ; but 
do you know how it looks ? jSTo, you don't. You 
can form no idea of the effect of such a combina- 
tion of features ; you can't imagine what the 
expression of the face is, you don't know it from 
Adam's. ISTow, who would for a moment put up 
with such portrait seeing? We say when we 
come up before a picture : " Get out of the way — 
let me see the whole effect of this." But it is in 
this dissected manner, that men look at the char- 
act<ir of Christ. Not so do they study Washing- 
ton; nor any other man of whose character they 
wish to form an opinion, and of whose personal 
deserts they wish to judge. Why should Christ be 
so unjustly treated ? Did it ever occur to you that 
there are four lives of Christ, each one written by 
men of different minds, that all forms of minds 
might b^ suited ? Study those lives hy the whole^ 
and you will find how to love him. 



'Tis not safe for any man, whether Christian or 

not, to measure himself by any other than God's 

own rule. Let him measure himself by God, and let 

him judge of himself by how he looks there. Let. 

him hold, up in the light of God's word the 

thoughts and intents of his inmost soul. 
I^ 2 



3i LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Perfp:ct love casteth out fear. While the heart 
is filling, the agitations of fear remain ; but, when 
die lake is filling by the moon-drawn and star- 
drawn tides, what commotion is there in its bosom — 
liow the sands are swept about, how the muddy 
bottom sends its rile through all the waters. There 
are ripples and eddies, and struggling currents ; 
there is seething and boiling ; there are bubbles 
and foam, until the lake is almost fiUed. But as 
the waters deepen, as the banks grow less and less, 
the agitation subsides. The sand settles, the foam 
is blown away, the bubbles are scattered. And 
when the lake is filled to its utmost capacity it 
clears itself, and lies unruffled and serene, reflect- 
ing in its calm bosom, the moon, the stars, and the 
tranquil heavens. Thus is it with the heart of 
man. When love ebbs low in his soul he is tossed 
and whirled by the agitations and torments of fear; 
but when the Spirit of God flows in and fills his 
heart with divine love, the tumults are stilled ; and 
looking up with confidence and joy, the man 
reflects from his overflowing soul the image of hig 
God and Father. 



Farmers have learned a lesson .wiiich many mo- 
ralists have not learned ; namely, that when seed is 
sown grain must be looked for at the latter end of 
the harvest, and not at the beginning. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 35 

Christ reveals himself unto his own in ten thou- 
sand ways, but often they do not know him when 
he comes. Many times he speaks to them when 
they do not even suspect that they have had a reve- 
lation. They dare not think it; they fear that it 
would be a lack of humility to believe that the 
Saviour really has made good his promise, and 
come unto them. When we are burdened and cast 
down, how often does some passage of Scripture 
dart suddenly into our mind, lighting up all our 
darkness like a flash from Heaven? It is from Hea- 
ven. Christ thus reveals himself to streno-then and 
encourage us. AYe may be beset by sore tempta- 
tions, and just upon the point of yielding, when the 
word of warning comes; or we may be feeling deso- 
late and forsaken, having none to lean upon, and yet 
not knowing how to stand alone, when the revela- 
tion has been of love that passeth understanding — 
of pity deep as the bosom of Almighty God. I sat 
once under a tree near a little stream, holding in 
my hands a bunch of flowers. Suddenly, from the 
air came swooping down upon them a little bird. 
He had not seen me ; when he did so he instantly 
fled : but he could not take from me the sweet sur- 
prise and the exciting pleasure of his visit. Thus 
comes flying to us the new revelation from our God. 
New in cftect, though old in letter. Like the bird 
that only touched nic with its little feet and bill, it 



36 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

may but aliglit a moment on our heart, and depart 
as suddenly as it came, but it does its work. As, at 
a touch from some passing thing, the dew-laden 
bushes shake off at morn the weight of the burden 
that has been pressing down all their leaves, so, at 
one shock, do our hearts shake off their burdens, 
and rise up in thanksgiving and joy. 



A MAN who is very much afraid of sins that 
bring immediate shame and punishment, while he 
cares nothing at all for those which are of a nature 
to recur, increase and form character, is like a child 
who should come laughing into a room with his 
apron full of asps ; but be very much terrified at 
being chased by a butterfly. 



There is no enduring happiness apart from God. 
As well might a branch broken from a tree in the 
forest say, " Now I am free — I will grow and be a 
tree by myself," as any human soul saj^, " I will be 
free — I will do as I like and be happy in my own 
way," when he does not draw on God for his enjoy- 
ment. He is a broken bough — a reed plucked up : 
a waif floating no whither. True happiness he can 
never know until he comes to draw it from its only 
source — God. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 37 

There are sins which, like asps, always carry 
their stins: with them. The instant one meddles 
with them, he is struck by the poisoned dart. 
Such sins are generally rare and admitted to be 
very wrong. But there are others that are far 
more dangerous. Men in tropical climates may be 
very much afraid of tigers ; but there are multi- 
tudes of minute insects flying in the woods whose 
bite is death. Shall they be less afraid of these ? 



Men often hunger and thirst after God when 
'they don't know what ails them. There is cra- 
dled in every man's soul, though often nearly 
smothered, something which is the child of God, 
ever crying out for its Father. You may say, " 1 
cast religion, priests and churches overboard ; I'll 
have no more to do with them, I've seen throuofh 
them, and they are worthless." But you will have 
more to do with them, for when you have destroyed 
the outward forms, the living want will still be in 
you. Eeligion is not a thing of arbitrary requisi- 
tions it is an inherent need of the soul. The Bible 
and ordinances are but evoked by man's necessities, 
to help him. You come to church, you think youi 
cheeks are hard, and they are; you think your 
hearts are hard, and they are hard ; you think you 
can resist the dogmas, and so you can ; therefore T 



38 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

shall not present them. I won't throw pearls 
before swine, but being crafty, I catch you with 
guile. Many of you are ashamed that you want to 
come here ; some of you go out cursing because 
your hearts are touched. But you -come again and 
again. You are what is called gospel hardened ; 
but in reality you are word hardened. You have 
heard the same things presented in the same way 
so long that you are tired of them ; therefore I go 
out of my way to get new forms in which to pre- 
sent old truths. For your sakes I forsake all set 
rules of sermonizing, and strike direct at that 
within you which I know will echo to my words. 
I know that in every man's bosom there is that 
which at times longs for something better and 
purer than he is. At your interior consciousness I 
aim my thrust. I strike my blow. Those old bells 
in you, I will make them ring. You may turn out 
the sexton, you may cut off the rope. I'll throw 
stones and hit your bells if I can do nothing more. 
To the truth they shall peal out, and your soul shall 
tremble at the peal. 



Journals are often the devil's vanity trap. Men 
write in them pretending to themselves that thej 
don't expect them to be published, when all the time 
they know that they will be ; and are writing 
under the influence of that idea. 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 39 

In some waters a man may drive strong piles 
and build his warehouses upon them, sure that the 
waters are not powerful enough to undermine his 
foundations ; but there is an innumerable army of 
minute creatures at work beneath the water, feed- 
ing themselves upon those strong piles. They 
gnaw, they bore, they cut, they dig, into the solid 
wood, and at last a child might overthrow those 
foundations, for they are cut through and eaten to 
a honeycomb. Thus by avarice, revenge, jealousy 
and selfishness, men's dispositions are often cut 
through and they don't know it. 



There are men who delight to see evil in those 
professing godliness. They doubt, they leer, they 
jeer. Well, there are birds appointed to seek for 
carrion, and they alwaj^s find it. By their very 
seeking they declare their own nature. Don't you 
imitate their dirty fiight. They are of the carrion 
family. 

God values men according to what they have had 
to walk throuo;h. Some men are so made that thev 
are obliged to hold perpetual warfare with them- 
selves. They must have a hand always on tlie en- 

1 gine, or something will blow up in them every 

I minute. 



4:0 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

There are doubts and troubles that never can be 
settled. The only thing to be done with them is to 
lay them down and leave them. This the Christian 
must do if he wants peace ; and if the impenitent 
won't do it they will torment him to death. 
That's all he'll gain by clinging to them. There is 
no system by which everything can be made to look 
clear to men while they live in the flesh. As long 
as we live there must continue to be many things 
that to us seem dark and^ mysterious. It matters 
not. Enough that there is no darkness, no mystery 
which is not clear to God. To him let us trust mat- 
ters, and not take the care of things upon ourselves. 



God will certainly take care of you if you bear 
your whole weight on him. He may not do it just 
in your way ; but he will do it. He cannot let one 
of your real interests perish, or be hurt, without the 
most dreadful perjury of himself. 



Great crimes ruin comparatively few. It is the 
little meannesses, selfishnesses, and impurities, that 
do the work of death on most men ; and these 
things march not to the sound of fife or drum. 
They steal with muffled tread, as the foe steals on 
the sleeping sentinel. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 41 

What a man has thought and felt bears intimate 
relation to what he now thinks and feels. There is 
no such thing as divesting one's self of the influences 
of former living. A man's life is a concatenation — 
he is rolled over and over on himself. 



There are many men who have a dyspepsia of 
books. 



In love, the freshness and charm of youth have 
caught men's attention, and they have pronounced 
the first love best ; but it is the poorest. One does 
not know how to love till he has felt the discipline of 
life. Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very 
hot and fierce,' but still only light and flickering. 
The love of the older and disciplined heart is as 
coals, deep-burning, unquenchable. 



A REALIZATION of the Spiritual nature and the 
eternal duration of man purifies and elevates our 
social intercourse. The clearer a man sees man's 
destination and true life, the more he reveres hu- 
manity as a thing sacred and honored of God. 



I don't believe in definitions of feelings or clasfies 
of feelin.o:s. Thev can be illustrated — not defined. 



42 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

There is a time wlien one is neither one thing nor 
another ; not exactly in boyhood, and not exactly 
in manhood, but in the limbo of vanity. This is the 
time when parents become foolish, and not worth 
minding ; when the theology of one's "childhood be- 
comes bigotry, narrow, simple ; when one yearns 
for largeness, liberty. This is the time of danger. 
Infidelity with dark wing hovers near, and if the 
youth be not now guided wisely and betimes they 
become its victims. Having myself narrowly es- 
caped this doom, I know how to sympathize with 
those who are in dano;er. 



Eeason is like a telescope— you can arrange it so 
that with it you can see only the things near to you, 
but it has other powers. By drawing it out and 
properly adjusting the glasses, you can make what 
is near you to grow dim, and the things far off to 
come near, and by and by, when the lenses are 
all right, you can see beyond the stars and into the 
heavenly city, and the magnificent background to 
your view is the glory of God. 



Suffering rightly borne weakens that part of us 
that should be weak, and strengthens what should 
be strong. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 43 

Will men's prayers be answered ? Not if they 
pray as boys whittle sticks, absently, hardly know- 
ing or caring what they are about. I've known 
men to begin to pray about Adam, and go on from 
him away down to the present time, whittling their 
Btick clear to a point with about as much feeling, 
and doing about as much good as the boy does. 



Hefinemknt is one of the outworkings of faith in 
the spiritual. It is the lifting of one's self upwards 
from the merely sensual, the effort of the soul to 
etherealize the common wants and nses of life. A 
really refined man who ignores Christianity is a 
creature to beget wonder. A man whose sense of 
color is so exquisite that one wrong shade cannot 
escape his eye, that harmony of hues is his soul's 
delight, I marvel that that man's eye has never 
pierced the blue, and caught the sparkle of the gems 
that glow with matchless dyes upon the gates of the 
eternal city. A man whose ear is all attuned to 
melodj% who has brought music to its highest 
earthly perfection, and stands entranced by the 
sweetness of its passing tones, I marvel that he 
never hears the ringing of the harps of heaven. 
And he who has lifted his affections until no touch 
of grossness ever defiles them, who has made them 
pure as crvstal from the taint oi life's vnlffaritv, I 



44 LIYING "WORDS FTOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

marvel, more and more, that along their edges 
plays no fire from the celestial treasury of love — 
that as the lightning from the earth leaps forth and 
joins and mingles with the lightning from the cloud, 
his love is not touched and intensified by the love 
of God. What rapine ! what havoc ! when such an 
one — his life being touched — goes forth, naked and 
alone, to find that he has stopped infinitely short of 
■' any preparation which could make the happiness of 
Heaven possible to him. 



Men who concentrate* themselves all upon one 
point may be sharp, acute, pungent — they may 
have spear-like force of character, but they are 
never broad and round, never of full-proportioned 
manhood ; which can only be obtained by the 
carrying forward of the whole of a man in an even- 
breasted march. 



Many a man never sees into heaven, till he sees 
there through the grave of his little child, or till he 
loses his wife, not only the better half, but often the 
whole better part of himself. That unutterable loss 
which darkens the house, which darkens life itself , 
which takes the breath out of the years, and leaves 
a man to go staggering through the world, like one 
smitten at noonday with blinduess. 



LlVmO WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 45 

To some it is appointed tq wander in Gethsemane, 
having no variation to their lives except a walk 
over to Calvary. There are faces lifted up to* me 
from this congregation, into which I cannot look 
without revelations of their owners' peculiar histo- 
ries, which seem like flashes from another world. 
They sit calm and still before me ; but I know that 
no scorpions or vipers can sting as they are stung 
through every one of their best affections. Every 
day their tears fall. For years and years they 
have borne this, and yet they can bear witness that 
through faith they have l^en enabled to endure. 
More ; that though they expect no relief, faith will 
support them to the end. Is religion, then, a fan- 
tasy, ^vhen it can so uphold the soul amid all the 
waves of trouble ? I tell you no. Let who chooses 
to do so, swelter in philosophical anguish ; I prefer 
to stand serene upon my Christian faith and hope. 
Tou may scoff at it and call it folly. I tell you it 
is a very comfortctble thing to find refuge from every 
distressful and corrodins; care in the love of God. 



I THINK no man could have his arm rot and drop 

away, from wrist to shoulder, and not know it ; but 

you shall find numberless men whose consciences 

have rotted, from circumference to core, and they 

{ know nothing about it. They are less concerned 



46 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

about themselves thao^ when the corruption first 
began. This silence of the hollowing out of a man 
— this noiseless process of preparing him for de- 
struction, is an element of very great fearfulness. 
It fills me with grief and sadness, as I look on men, 
to know that as the snow falls, flake by flake, and 
no sound tells of its accumulation — that as the dust 
sifts in, and no noise warns of its choking rise, so 
silently, so surely, man is heaping to himself wrath 
against the day of wrath, and does not know it. 



She was a woman, and by so much nearer to God 
as that makes one. 



Live not for selfish aims. Live to shed joy on 
others. Thus best shall your own happiness be 
secured ; for no joy is ever given freely forth that 
does not have quick echo in the giver's own heart. 



Every action of the intellect, save that which is 
purely scientific, is based upon some feeling. Am- 
bition says to intellect, ''Look out for me;'' fear 
cries '' Look out for me." Greed also, '' Arouse, 
sharpen yourself; pierce the darkness, teach me 
how to gain ;" and love cries passionately, pleading- 
ly, '' Awake, be my advocate, think, think for me." 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 47 

i^EiTHER I nor my family ever put on the gar- 
ments of mourning. 1 Avill not permit it. Yet I 
would not refuse to those who think differently from 
me, the right to change their garments in memory 
of their beloved dead. But do not borrow of the 
devil ; choose some color that shall speak of hope, 
of release, of victory. Draw not over yourselves 
the black tokens of pollution. Do not blaspheme 
by naming that despair which is triumph and 
eternal life. 

" Therefore let no man glory in men, for all 
things are yours. Whether Paul, or ApoUos, or 
Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things 
present, or things to come, all are yours, and ye are 
Christ's, and Christ is God's." This is a wonder • 
ful ownership ; nowhere else in the world is there 
such an one. The time is coming when even to the 
grosser property of earth this will apply ; for the 
heirs of heaven are not to be forever the paupers 
of earth ; but now it is true of all things pertaining 
to the realm of mind. The things our Father made 
are ours, not in the sense of our having any riglit 
to deprive others of tliem, but ours as our earthly 
father's home and goods were ours in the days of 
our childhood. Were not our parents, our brothers 
and sisters, was not the infant sleeping in its cradle, 
ours? Was not the shelter of the roof-tree ours? 



48 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Was not tlie homestead ours? Were not the fields, 
the gardens, the trees, the flowers, ours, in the full 
heart-possession, which is the interior, the true 
ownership. Were they not just as sensibly our 
own as though we alone possessed them ? And 
were they not ours because we were the children of 
our father? And were they any the less ours be- 
cause they "belonged to our brothers just the same ? 
If we are the children of God, we are the owners 
of all the good things in the universe. Eead here 
the title ; it has our Father's seal. We read of the 
noble ones, the mighty and holy ones of old, and 
we say : "These men are ours — They know it now, 
for they are where the light is clear, and ere many 
days they will give us loving welcome-. 

We stand before the gifted, refined, and noble 
men of our own time ; they do not know or heed us, 
but they are ours, as we are theirs, and soon we 
shall rejoice together in the glad possession. We 
walk among the well-known princes of reform and 
progress. They have an influence over us, that we 
cannot resist — they make us laugh or weep — they 
Hteal our hearts, they direct our thoughts, but they 
reg'ard us not amid the crowds that flock to hear 
them. They do not see or know their brothers, but I 
we know them right well, and we bide our time ; \ 
eternity is long — there is no haste there — no over-^ 
work, no weariness, and no indifference or misinter- 

.11 



LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 49 

pretation, and those great, rich souls shall yet ac- 
knowledge and receive ns. "We are among them 
now, as a disguised man in his fathers house. 
He sees his parents and his brethren, and he is 
happy to be with them, though they know him 
not. He knows them w^ell, and he can afford to 
wait awhile until they discover him. The Christian 
who lives near to God, finds a fulfillment of the 
promise that whoever for Christ's sake forsakes 
aught, shall receive in this world many fold more 
than he loses. But oh ! that w^orld to come ! that 
world eternal which is also purs ! Why should any 
Christian feel himself poor ? I believe there is no 
feeling more universal in the human heart than 
that of loneliness. At the outset of life every face 
glows ; every heart has its high hopes, and no one 
thinks much of the insufficiency of the things 
of time ; but when the middle hours of life draw 
on, not more than one-third of the faces are still 
bright — two-thirds are disappointed and almost dis- 
couraged. When the evening comes, not more 
than one in a thousand carries the light still in his 
eye and on his forehead. The nine hundred and 
ninety-nine have fallen by the way. They have 
tasted the cold selfishness of the world ; their breasts 
and their sides have been pierced by the jagged 
points and the poisoned thorns against w^hich rude 
winds and struggling waves, have dashed them. 



50 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

They have felt the utter insufficiency of human 
help and sympathy ; and it has been well for them, 
if instead of lying down in the bitterness of despair, 
they have turned for what they so greatly needed to 
the only fountain of availing sympathy and aid. 
'' Alone ! alone !" has been and is the wail of every 
human heart that has not been satisfied by the 
love of God. And the Christian, while on earth, is 
subject to seasons of the same distress, when he will 
feel unknown, unloved, forsaken of his kind. But 
he knows that 'tis only for a moment tliat his deso- 
lation can endure, and then he will enter where 
all are his, and where they all will own him. Tlien^ 
when he walks with wings and not with feet, he 
may measure his possessions, and never again will 
his heart be cold, or lone, or sad. 



To some men the mere fact of existence, the 
simple walking through the air and light, gives 
more pleasure than others find in the whole round 
of so-called pleasures. 



Paul was converted as the germ of a peach 
sprouts. In splits its shell clear off, and has free 
room to root and grow. Many conversions only 
crack the shell; and it is worn so long that the 
man's Christian character is stunted and shallow for 
his whole life. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 51 

To live altogether in the aflfections is not safe. 
Death will overleap the fold, and bear away the 
precious lambs that are therein ; and then the man 
will go wailing through the world, shorn of all that 
was life to him. A man's life should not "consist 
in the abundance of the things that he possesseth." 



We are all writing books — histories of our own 
lives, and we can omit nothing, soften nothing. 
Only the naked truth can be marked upon those 
pages. 



Let your sorrows, when they rise and swell, be 
like the waves of the Sound, when they at night 
flash forth their glories of ^phosphorescent light — or 
like the clouds that reflect the sunlight glorifled. 



It is a bad thino; to live exclusivelv in taste and 
refinement. It begets a veiy wicked sort of selfish- 
ness. The man who lives too much in these facul- 
ties will be perpetually stumbling upon things 
shocking to his feelings, for God forgot to polish all 
the rocks in this world. He didn't make trees all 
smooth. There are a thousand things that he didn't 
put velvet on. It's a pity men should grow to.o re- 
fined to keep company with God in his provi- 
dences. 



52 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

I WILL declare the whole counsel of God ; I will 
make it to bear hardest and hottest, and to cast its 
light strongest and clearest on the most open and 
obstinate sins. I will bring it down hissing hot 
upon the hydra-headed monster, that many think it 
best to pat and soothe. I will, while the Lord 
spares my breath, cry aloud, and loudest when men 
would fain teach me prudent silence, '' Woe unto 
them that decree unrighteous decrees ; that turn 
aside the needy from judgment ; that take away 
the right of the poor; that make widows their 
prey ; that rob the fatherless ; that oppress the 
poor to increase their riches. Behold, the hire of 
the laborers who have reaped down your fields, 
which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth ; and 
the cries of them which have reaped are entered 
into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have 
lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton ; 
ye have condemned and killed the just, and he 
doth not resist you ; but, behold, the judge standeth 
before the door." 



Tears often prove the telescope by which men 
see far into heaven. 



Christian graces are natural faculties which have 
blossomed under the influence of divine love. 



LIVING WORDS FKOM rLYMOUTH PULPIT. 53 

SoRKOWS are like clouds, which, though, black 
when they are just passing over us, when they are 
overpast, become as if they were the garments of 
God thrown off in purple and gold along the horizon. 



Merchants who play at snatch and grab, or at 
pinch and squeeze games, have need to be taught 
the first principles of the Gospel. 



This world is like a battle-field full of little hills 
and hollows ;' and to each soldier in the war, the 
small valley where he fights seems the whole, or at 
least the chief part of the field. He cannot see the 
contest on the other side of the hill ; and he thinks, 
in his small judgment, that as go things in his hol- 
low, so goes the whole battle. Thus either his 
defeat or his victory looks to him of far more con- 
sequence than it really is. But God looks at things 
by the whole, and in heaven he will show them so 
to us. When we have fought long in a good cause, 
and have been at last thrown away backward, and 
lie gasping, perchance dying, upon our banners, we 
must not think that the good cause lias failed. 
God's work never goes backward. lie takes the 
large view of things, and when we are come up out 
of the blood and dust of conflict, he will show it 
to us, and we shall be comforted. For all that I 



64 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

know to be right and good I shall do battle till I die. 
For the encouragement and sympathy I have met. 
I thank God. I thank God also for the contumely 
and abuse which bad men have heaped upon me. 
It is no honor to be praised by the selfish and evil 
man, and the oppressor; but I would that my 
brethren, the sons of my Father, my fellow workers 
in the vineyard of the Lord, understood and loved 
me. But in one thing I am superior to my brother 
ministers who call me so bad a minister : I know 
that many of them are good and true men, though 
over careful and most mistaken ones, and I know 
that they have, sooner or later, got to own me for a 
good man. They are mine. They cannot help 
themselves. I love all that is good in them ; and 
they have got to love me. There is no escape for 
them, " for all things are mine, and I am Christ's, 
and Christ is God's." Does any one ask for the full 
meaning of this threefold heart enshrinement ? 
They cannot have the exposition from mortal lips ; 
but we shall all learn its meaning when we get to 
heaven. 



Once I thought of heaven with the cold rigid 
thoughts of the old teaching. It was a stately, 
solemn, unnatural place, full of everlasting practis- 
ing in music. But now I take the liberty of pro- 
phecy. I see that when the oriental saints, or- 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOCTn PULPIT. 55 

when Christ himself described that glorious place, 
they made use of whatever of earthly beauty and 
glory seemed greatest to those to whom they were 
si3eaking as images of it. I do the same. Every 
one may do the same. There is in heaven what 
will more than satisfy every mind. As a place for 
studying mathematics it could attract Newton, bi!t 
I fear that I should hardly want to go there if that 
were to be the employment of all. But for my 
nature there will be abundant food, and for your 
natures, too, all various as they are. *rhere is not a 
day passes over me here, that I do not sicken at 
some unworthiness or hypocrisy ; but I think 
''Yonder there can enter nothing that defileth, or 
that maketh a lie." Not a day but that tears 
start to my eyes at the sight of other's tears ; but 
I know that there "there shall be no more 
sorrow, nor crying." Here, I shrink daily from 
the contact of those that are mean and sordid ; 
there, all is noble and generous. Here, I am often 
chilled by want of affection ; there, all is love, per- 
fect and undefiled. Of whatever is most beloved 
by me ; of all that is most grand and glorious ; of 
all that is most warm, winning and. delightful, I 
can think and yet be sure that I have not risen to 
a tithe of the warmth and beauty of tlie glorious 
home awaiting tlie sons of God — the joint heirs of 
Jesus Christ. 



50 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

There is scarce a time when men meet to- 
gether, when they could not, if they listened for it, 
hear the sharp, shrill singing of ten thousand 
petty lies buzzing around them. Men have vio- 
lated truth so long, that they have come to lie 
almost unconsciouslv. 



A man's religion is not a thing all made in 
heaven, and then let down, and shoved into him. 
It is his own conduct and life. A man has no more 
religion than he acts out in his life. 



•'Take no thought for the morrow," that is, no 
anxious, fretful thought. Walk through to-day as 
well as you can, and God will undertake for your 
future. When you go forward out of to-day, to 
worry about it, you are over the fence, you are 
trespassing, and God will scourge you back into 
your own lot. ' When I have been fishing in a 
mountain stream, I have always found that so long 
as I kept a short line I could manage my fishing 
very well ; but when I let my line run out, the 
stream took it down, and there I was, at the mercy 
of every stick that stuck up in the stream, and every 
rock that jutted out from the banks. I lost my 
fish and I tangled my line ; very likely I lost my 
footino; also, and got over head and ears in the 



1 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 57 

stream. Now, most men have cast out their line 
into life forty years long^ when it ought to be but 
one day long. In consequence, they are not able to 
manage their tackle at all ; but are pulled after it, 
stumbling first into this hole, and then into that ; 
slipping lip here, and slipping down there, strug- 
gling and splashing about in far more distressed 
fashion than the fish at the other end of the line — 
and, as a general thing, there is no fish there. 
Haul in your line ! ! 

Before men we stand as opaque beehives. They 
can see the thoughts go in and out of us ; but what 
work they do inside of a man they cannot tell. 
Before God we are as glass beeliives, and all that 
our thoughts are doing within ns he perfectly sees 
and understands. 



Caution and conservatism are expected of old 
age ; but when the young men of a nation are pos- 
sessed of such a spirit, when they are afraid of the 
noise and strife caused by the new applications of 
the truth. Heaven save the land ! Its funeral bell 
has already rung. 

Christians who are forever living on their own 
experiences, are like a leaf which has gut into an 
eddy in the river, where it keeps whirling round 
C 2 



58 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PCTLPIT. 

and round in its own track. You shall see it there, 
whirling ; and shall go away and sleep, and in the 
morning you shall come again and find the leaf 
there still. At noon there it is, and when night 
comes it is still nothing but whirl, whirl, whirl. 
Working, travelling, hard enough, to be sure, but 
making no progress. Now, let something break it 
loose from that whirlpool, and away it will go, 
merrily down the stream. Too much looking back- 
ward and inward is bad for piety and progression. 



The assertion that the " common people " heard 
Christ gladly, seems to imply that the higher 
classes cared but little for him. 



The Bible don't pretend to teach fully of any- 
thing save man's lost condition, and of his way of 
returning to God. The truth of it is not a subject 
for logic; it can only be tested by consciousness 
and experience. To test the truth of a Christian's 
experience try the life of a Christian. Go on your 
knees before God. Bring all yoiir idols, bring self- 
will, and pride, and every evil lust before him, and 
give them up. Devote yourself, heart and soul, to his 
will and see if you do not " know of the doctrine." 

This is the only way to examine, and study into 
Bible truths ; and none that ever tried this way till 



LIVING WORDS FKOM rLYMOUTII PULPFr. 59 

their hearts grew warm witli love to Christ ever 
had much trouble about doubting the truths of 
revelation. There are men who are avowedly try- 
ing to get rid of the Bible, and there are other men 
who sorrowfully fear that it must be given up. 
But destroy it, and what then ? 

Why we should be like men who had burned up 
all the wills and title deeds which would have given 
them a large estate — or, like sick and wounded 
men, who had destroyed all the means of relief. 
Suppose that the wounded men in the Crimean hos- 
pitals had raised an insurrection. Suppose that one 
man, having lost a leg, had said to another who had 
lost an arm, and to another with a part of his head 
and features shot away : " Come, let us take no 
more of this medicine. Let us put an end to the 
directions and attentions of these doctors and 
nurses ;" and suppose that then the poor wretches 
had hobbled up and turned all their kind and skill- 
ful physicians out of doors ;]iad ejected Florence 
Niirhtincrale after them, and flunor the nurses and the 
medicines, and all the surgeon's instruments out of 
the windows. Would all this have done them any 
good? 

They would thus have got rid of all who could 
have helped them, but while the doctors, and 
nurses, and the remi3dies and balm for the wounds, 
were all outside of the walls, the wounds and putri- 



60 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

fyiiig sores, the burning anguish and tormenting 
pain would all have continued within. 

But what is a Crimean hospital to this groaning 
world ? this lazar-house of corruption and woe, that 
goes swinging through the ages to one nnceasing 
anthem of pain. Men would make their fate utterly 
hopeless, their damnation doubly sure, could they 
extinguish the only light which can lead them from 
that doom of unrepented sin, whose horror is that it 
forever gathers blackness as it rolls and rolls through- 
out eternal night. 



There are persons who judge of Christians as a 
man would judge of apples, who should enter an 
orchard and go stooping along upon the ground in 
search of them. He picks up one, a hard, green 
thing, no bigger than a walnut. He bites it ; it is 
sour and bitter ; it puckers up his mouth and sets his 
teeth on edge. ^'Ha!" he says, throwing the un- 
timely fruit away, '^ I hear them speak of apples as 
being so delicious — I'm sure I don't think much of 
this one." 

He picks up another which looks yellow. There's 
a hole in it, but he don't know what that means, so 
he bites into it and finds a worm. 

"Bah! apples! delicious indeed !" he cries in 
disgust ; and then picks up a third which is crushed 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 61 

by his touch, for it is rotten. So he condemns 
apples, because he has looked for them upon the 
ground instead of on the trees above his head, where 
they hang ripe, juicy, and luscious, a chief treasure 
of autumn. 

Just BO men judge of Christians so long as they 
take for fair samples those that lie rotten on the 
ground. 



The young minister, having just finished his 
course, sometimes says, " Now liere 1 am, poor, 
miserable sinner that 1 am, with the harvest of 
twenty years' study in my brain ; what must I do 
with myself? Must all this learning, must my 
powers and genius be buried in some obscure ham- 
let ? No ! I must have a field worthy of my tal- 
ents." And so he is found hanging about the pur- 
lieus of large towns and cities, waiting for vacancies 
in distinguished places. If he gets such a place as 
he thinks worthy of him, he soon gets a hint from 
his own people that he had better go down lower; 
and then he gets the bronchitis, or is called to ii 
professorship, or something of that sort (for people 
will lie like witches about this sort of thing) ; and 
his people will endow a professorship and ])lacc 
their D.I), there in order to get rid of him respect- 
ably when ho has used himself u[) on their hands. 



62 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

The story that goes out to the world is : " The Eev. 
Dr. So-and-so was called to take a professor's seat, 
and has therefore resigned the charge of his people 
for this new, and in some respects, more important 
field of labor." 

Kow, to all in general, but to young ministers in 
particular, does Christ's injunction to take first the 
lowest seat, apply. It is sense and sound philoso- 
phy as well as proper humility to do so. The call 
will be "Come up higher" as soon as the man 
has filled and made to overflow the first place 
assigned him. Learn from nature how to become 
great and strong. Look at the acorn — it is content 
to go into the ground and be covered — it is content 
to lie long in darkness hidden away from the know- 
ledge of all. And what then? Why then it is 
content to be a little germ no larger than a knit- 
ting-needle ; and what then ? Why then it goes on 
for a long time striking its roots hither and thither, 
grappling itself more and more firmly into the 
earth, working with all its strength under ground. 
And then? Why then it is content to be for a 
whole year, a single shoot no bigger than a whip ; 
and for another year it is content to be two shoots ; 
the third to have its shoots .grow a little longer and 
be headed by green tips. And for ten years it 
grows no larger than that a man's strength can up- 
root it ; but in fifteen or twenty years it is beyond 



LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 63 

the strength of man ; and in thirty or forty yeara 
it stands aloft — a wrestler with the winds, able to 
'ake a hug with storm and winter. Li fifty or a 
hundred years, tempests cannot npheave it from the 
eai'th ; its foundations are as the rock ; they cannot 
be shaken. Thus should it be with man. Art 
called to be a scullion or a street-cleaner? act 
well your humble part and you shall soon find 
yourself in one that is higher; but be sure that God 
will never commence for you the work of saintship 
where you are not^ but where you are. Fill full, 
of yourself, the spot where God has placed you ; 
grow daily till the place overflows with you, and 
your borders will surely be enlarged. So shall you 
rise upward, step by step, on secure footing, until 
at last you shall sit down in that highest of all 
apartments from which, since its name is heaven, 
none are ever ejected. 



My heart is sick ! I see men going to destruc- 
tion on every hand, and I have no power to stay 
them. 

What a business is tliat of a preacher. What a 
calling is that which sends one to seek men's souls 
even at the very gates of perdition, and often 
vainly — only now and then one rescued. If you 
could know what causes lie at the foundation of 



64 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

this and that sermon that I preach here, with my 
soul faint with yearning over this one and that in 
this great congregation, you would not wonder that 
I say I feel crushed, overborne, by the weight that 
is upon me. 

There are some men who are so proud that they 
don't intend to enter the church until they become 
so good that they can confer an honor upon the 
church by entering it. They say, " Look out for a 
striking conversion, and for a high-toned, consistent 
Christian life, when I start. I'll set an example to 
those members who are such a disgrace to the 
church that I, sinner as I am, am ashamed of them." 
Ah ! self-deluded man, you never will get God to 
dwell in your heart until it comes out of that proud 
frame. He don't expect you to confer honor on his 
church by entering it, at least not in the way you 
imagine. You have got to go in through the door 
of humility ; you have got to come to that state in 
which you shall forget everything but that you are 
a lost and ruined sinner, and that your only hope, 
as tlie only hope of a murderer, is in him who will 
accept nothing but a broken and contrite heart. 
The language of a man entering the church is not, 
'' I have become so good, that I will now join 
myself to the members of Christ, and thencefcrfh 
l)e a pattern to all who know me, and an honor to 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTU PULPIT. 65 

God;'' it is,*''! have discovered mj lost and 
wretched condition, and that I am too weak to 
stand alone. I have cast my soul upon Christ's 
mercy, and I beseech his children, if there is any 
strength or safety in the church, to take me in and 
watch over and help me." When you have been 
humbled then you maybe lifted up, but ''before 
honor goetli humility." Suppose one went to the 
wheat, as it waved in the field, and said : " Would 
you like to be made into a loaf for the queen?'' 
'■' Yes," answers the wheat, " oh ! yes, we should 
like to be presented to the queen," and on it waves, 
swelling with pride at the thought of its conse- 
quence. But the reaper comes, and the wheat gets 
a stroke at the roots and is laid prostrate. " Alas !" 
it sighs, "is this goi7i(/ to the queoi?^^ But there it 
lies, drying in the scorching sun ; and then 'tis 
drawn to the threshing floor, and bruised and 
beaten without mercy. After this 'tis winnowed, 
and then tied up in darkness and carried to the 
mill. "Is not this almost over?" cries the poor 
wheat, but 'tis poured into the hopper and ground 
to powder. Then 'tis pressed and packed, and that 
is not all. It is mixed with water; it is worked 
and kneaded; it is subjected to various rapid 
changes, and finally to the process of cutting and 
shaping into loaves. " All ! shall I not vc^t now?" 
siglis the poor wheat. "Yes; 7Wio you may rest,'' 



66 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULI»IT. 

says the baker ; and forthwith shoves the loaf into 
a heated oven. When baked, and not till then, it 
is fit to be eaten; and is presented to the queen. 
If God intends to honor you by allowing you to 
honor him, he will lay you low, he will flail you, 
he will winnow you and grind you, he will knead 
and fashion you, and pass you through the fire ; and 
then you will have discovered what it is needful to 
do with pride. 

Meh should all have their feet on the same level, 
with leave to grow as high as they can from the 
charter God put in their souls. Oregon pines are 
three hundred feet high — how solitary their tops 
must be ; but they start from the same place that 
the shrub does. 



Some men — good men after a fashion, think there 
is nothing in the world so hard as that they are not 
so high now as they have been. Their pride and 
their vanity suff'er. "What is the trouble, friend ; 
can't you w^alk down there ? 

" Oh, yes." 

" Can't you procure enough to eat?" 

'' Oh, yes." 

'' Have you not shelter?" 

'' Yes, I have." 



w 



LIVING WORDS FEOM PLTMOUin PUT.PIT. 67 

" And clothes ?" 

" Well, yes." 

" Can't you get along comfortably V\ 

" Yes ; but then I used to live in a four-story 
house, and move in higher society. And my child- 
ren are not where I intended that they should 
be," etc. 

Man ! are you a child of God ? Have you not 
the inheritance of the universe by reversion? 
Only wait awhile. Have you not the sympathy 
and love of your Father, and a birth-right to eter- 
nity ? "What are you grumbling at ? Stand up- 
right like a man, a prince. Lift up your front and 
say in true manliness, " I can afford to stand in the 
valley. I think I could stand safely on the top of 
the mountain, but there are many there who could 
7iot afford to stand in the valley with me. 



Prayer covers the whole of a man's life. There 
is no thought, feeling, yearning, or desire, how- 
ever low, trifling, or vulgar we may deem it, 
which, if it affects onr real interest or liappiness, 
we may not lay before God and be sure of his sym- 
pathy. His nature is such that our often coming 
does not tire him. The whole burden of the whole 
life of every man may be rolled onto God and not 
wearv him, thoiiu'h it has wearied the man. 



68 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Some may be content to regard God as a being 
of crystalline purity and awful majesty, to be wor- 
shipped afar off, and not troubled with the details 
of daily life and conflict; but others need a God to 
whom they can come near^ and on whose bosom 
they can lean their heads, and be welcome there. 
They think of him nine times with a gush of filial 
love, where they do so once with solemn and 
shivering awe. They know that he loves each one 
of his children with a separate and peculiar love, 
and that he knows each one by name. 

Pray out your life to God. " Be instant in 
prayer," and the only way to do this, is to go to 
him in all moods ; in joy and sorrow, in depression 
and mirth, in hope and fear ; with everything that 
is in you, or that touches you. Confide in God — 
make him your familiar friend. Keep open the 
path from your heart to the heart of God, and let 
airy feet be always treading its trackless way. 

There is prayer that- is too deep for words, or 
even groans. Have you never lain prostrate 
before God in the consciousness that his eye was 
reading all that you could not tell him? 

No need to explain things to God, as one must 
do to the dearest human friend. ITo fear of his 
betraying what we pour into his ear. Come 
boldly and gladly to his feet; let him be to you 
as sunshine on the mountains, to attract and warm, 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PCLPIT. 69 

rather than as the shadows of tliose mountains 
which can only awe. 

The heart that cannot open to the eye of man 
goes naked and open into the presence of its God. 
There, all the sealed fountains are unclosed ; there, 
all the secrets which must ever be secrets from the 
nearest and most beloved earthly friend, are dis- 
closed, and the shrinking and sensitive soul has no 
reserve. Thus, we have sat down in the forest on 
a summer's day, and as long as men and boys 
tramped by, and the clatter and clasli of business 
was heard, there was no movement in the forest ; 
but when the din had ceased, when the footsteps 
had died away, and we sat motionless as the tree 
which supported us, there was a twitter overhead, 
and then an answer from another tree-top. Then out 
iiopped a bird, and lifted up its voice in song, and 
then a squirrel ran along the ground, and one by 
one all the mysteries and confidences of the forest 
were revealed to us. Thus unfolds the soul of man 
when none but God is near ; when it is hungering 
and thirsting after either the higher or the lower 
wants of life ; when it is yearning for its Father, or 
when it is home-sick for heaven. 

There be ecstacies in prayer, when the soul 
exults like birds on a fair morning in spring; and 
there bo agonies of prayer, when the burden of 
the soul cannot be even <rroaned out. AVe must 



70 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

bear the burden of Christ, the burden of souls; 
this he permits, and when we are before God, 
wrestling for the brother, the child, the loved friend 
of whatever name, when we think of that dear 
sou], glowing amid everlasting light, or wailing 
amid everlasting shadows, what words can ease 
us? 

It is not truth nor philosophy to say that prayer 
alters nothing, that the laws of nature are fixed, 
and tha^t entreaty cannot change them. The laws 
of nature are fixed on purjpose to he used for the 
granting of prayer o Any ma?^ can use the laws of 
nature to grant the requests of his child. Does he 
say that God, who made those laws, cannot do as 
much with them as he can ? 

Spontaneity in prayer we claim, as that which is 
most natural to us ; but far be it from our thought 
to condemn form for those who can thus pray best. 
Let no man bind or shackle another man's con- 
science, or try to walk by another man's light. Let 
each be true to himself Oh ! let the soul alone ; 
respect its moods and impulses. Judge not each 
other. Let each sinner pray as best he can, come 
unto God as best he may, but let him come. 

The soul of man sways hither and thither like 
the sea, tossed by restless yearnings, and passions, 
and fears ; and there is no shore against which it 
may break and rest, but the bosom of its God. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 71 

Christ spoke most to the masses clinging to the 
edge of life, struggling, and straining all their 
nerves to keep from slipping off. Their most im- 
portant petition, tlie burden of their daily cry — 
" bread," " bread !" not " home," '^ pleasure," 
" children," but simply " bread." 



I've seen luxuriant grasses growing on the tops 
of graves; I've seen flowers springing from the 
crevices of tombs ; and like these are the fair and 
lovely moralities, and the social virtues which 
adorn the character of him who is not born of 
God's Spirit. The corpse, with its corruptions, its 
wasting flesh, and its decaying bones, is beneath 
the fraorrant flowers. 



To understand how the imagery of Jesus seemed 
to those who heard it, we should try to enter into 
their circumstances. To speak of the delight and 
refreshment of water in Great Britain, where it is 
almost a nuisance, would be folly. To discourse 
eloquently of the refreshment of the shadow of a 
great rock to an inhabitant of mountain gorges, 
where sunshine is the tiling desirable, would be a 
waste of power and time. 

But when we remember that in llie land where 



72 Livma words feom Plymouth pulpit. 

most of the Scriptures were written there was, for 
the greater part of the year, but burning and 
scorching heat ; that there was no winter, as we 
understand the term ; that water was as precious as 
gold ; and that the digging of a well was the work 
of kings and princes ; that shadow was a luxury, to 
attain which hours of sore and weary travel- 
ling were accounted well spent — we can better 
understand the beauty and force of such figures 
as Jesus uses in speaking to the woman of 
Samaria. 

Digging a well rendered a man the benefactor of 
his race. " Canst thou do more than dig a well ?'' 
was the meaning of the woman's question to Jesus. 
This discourse of Jesus to her is an example of his 
usual mode. ITever did he begin at abstractions, 
or first things. He never began by thinking away 
back amid mist and mystery ; but from the simple, 
every day events of life he took his texts, and 
preached backward and upward to principles. In 
what entirely different keys were the two (Christ 
and the woman) conversing : This was one of those 
double meaning conversations that Christ delighted 
in. The woman and he were standing as two might 
stand with a wire gauze window-shade between them. 
He that is within the shade can see out well enough, 
but he that is without cannot see in. Christ was 
within; he saw on both sides of the curtain; but 



LIVING WORDS FROM! PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 73 

the woman stood witliout, darkly wondering of 
what water he was speaking. 



Men should not be mere indexes ; not condensed 
and abridged editions ; they should be themselves 
in full. Every man has a right to be all that God 
intended he should be, all that he has God's com- 
mission for in his own nature. And none have a 
right to hinder human growth. Take off the 
millstones ; untie the bands ; give man room — 
freedom. 



Common things are dearer to Christ than the 
refined and exclusive evolvements of culture. 
Things common to all men are more and better in 
his estimation than the things that are peculiar to 
a class. 



The Christianity of the present age is dead com- 
pared with what it should be. When I lived out 
West our wells were all dug very shallow, and 
when a drought came the water failed. Then we 
sent a man down into the well to dig another with- 
in it, and by and by he came to water far below 
the first well. But if the rain Avas long withheld 
this well also failed. Then, the man was sent a 

third time to dig and dig, until at length he struck 

D 



74 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

the living springs, wliich flow perpetually, which 
no drought can aff'ect. Many people think that 
after conversion religion will take care of itself. 
That water once gained there will always be a suffi- 
cient supply. There are whole churches whose 
religion is but a few feet deep. As long as showers 
are abundant this may do, but when they do not 
fall often the wells are dry. Let this not be so with 
you. Sink the shaft deeper and deeper still, until 
within you bubbles up that living water which 
runneth from beneath the throne of God. Don't 
depend on showers of grace. Be not at all content 
until the river is within your own souls. 

We must either conclude that the piety of the 
present day is a diflerent thing from what it was 
intended by Christ to be, or that he spoke the lan- 
guage of exaggeration. That he did not thus 
speak we know by the momentary elevations which 
we experience, when we rise into some nearness 
to the place where it is our right always to stand ; 
and can return with rapture the smile of our 
Father's love. There are seasons when our souls | 
exhale, and sit singing, like birds, in the very tree | 
of life. 

Oh! when I look upon the sun, and see what it 
has power to do — when I see that on the barren 
soil it flings a warm and radiant scarf of light, and 
that beneath that scarf springs up life ! life ! life ! and 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 75 

gorgeous beauty, and lavish and redolent bloom, 
I know that the Sun of Righteousness has a greater 
power than this, if men's stiflP, and frozen and 
faithless hearts will but open themselves to his 
rays. 

The love of God ! who can fathom it ? We soon 
cloy with honey ; 'tis not very hard to satisfy our- 
selves with sugar; even of bread we may tire ; but 
who ever tired of air ? All day we breathe it ; at 
morning, at noon, at night, all night — all our lives, 
and we are not weary. Love is the mtal air of 
the soul. 

Every earthly pleasure wearies, but of spiritual 
pleasures we never tire. The more we are filled 
with them the more hungry and thirsty after them 
we grow ; and we are more sure, the more we 
taste the love of God, that it can fill us, and bo 
always about us, and be always peace and ever- 
lasting joy. 

Why do we not bud and bloom more gloriously 
beneath the shining of this sun of love ? 

It is because we have portioned him, we have 
limited him, we have not consecrated to him the 
whole of our lives. We give him our Sabbaths, our 
morning and our evening hours of prayer, our feel- 
ings of solemnity and self-condemnation, our hours 
of depression and tears ; wc go to him in trouble, 
and ploom. and fear, wc call uj^ou him early when 



76 LIVING WOKDS FJROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

all is dark about us ; but from our business, from 
our pleasure, from our social and common life, we 
put him away. Our brightest and most agreeable, 
and our busiest and most useful hours we keep for 
ourselves and our fellows ; but we go with our un- 
happy and unattractive moods and feelings, with 
long, forlorn faces, and tearful eyes, to wait upon 
our God. Can this be well-pleasing in his sight ? 
If a lover or a bridegroom gave his chosen fair a 
diamond to wear upon her breast, and she should 
wear it joyfully at all times, save when she came 
into his presence, and then should carefully hide it 
from sight, would he not have a right to complain ? 
but what diamond ever sparkled with so radiant a 
light as shines a smile upon the human face, and 
when it is a heart-smile, it hath a priceless value. 
God gave man power to smile — and man only, of 
all creatures, possesses that power — whj should he 
seek to hide his smiles and innocent mirth from 
him who made and loves them? 



Did Christ keep his religion for the pulpit, and 
fear to " degrade his office " by mixing with and 
trying to influence the masses ? Did he attempt to 
keep his disciples unspotted from the world by 
shutting them from the rush and turmoil of the 
world ? 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 77 

Consecrating your life to Christ is not giving 
up all the pleasures and beauties of life. Take all 
of these that he gives you, and use them gladly 
and gratefully, as gifts from him, to be resigned if 
he so wills it. Be as joyful, as happy — aye, as 
inevry as you will, while the sunshine is upon you, 
but when the shadows fall be patient; and be 
filled alway with abundant love for him. Let that 
love for him go into every act of your life, whether 
civil or religious. Make every act a religious 
act. 

When Christians learn to do all things as unto 
Christ, then will the church arise and her light 
come ; hut while religion and ministers are kept 
pretty much confined to the pulpit, the prayer-meet- 
ing, the study, and the family altar, darkness will 
be on souls and over the earth. 

There are two great difficulties in presenting this 
subject. One is that you all know so little about 
it; the other is, that /know so little about it. We 
have become so accustomed to the cant of piety 
— so satisfied with a heavy heart, and a solemn 
face, so used to pray and pray, and then go away 
and forget that every act should be as a prayer; 
that, say what we may, we hardly realize that love 
to God should be love^ or that his love to us is 
actual love — a passion, warmer tlian ever swells in 
human breast — real, throbbino;, yearning love, that 



78 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

knows us each by name, and longs to have us al- 
low him to fit us for that larger life where all that 
is here denied to us shall be freely given. 

For in heaven the good things that we have 
now but in part shall be perfected ; and every single 
pure yearning of our nature shall be abundantly 
fulfilled. 

Here we are like plants which the gardener 
keeps in pots till they are ready to be transplanted. 
Often we are in every way very much cramped 
while here ; there we shall have root room, and 
branch room, and the promise of our nature shall 
be more than made good. We shall be made all 
glorious, and be satisfied with our inheritance. 

God does not mock us. He plants no yearning 
in the human soul which he does not intend to 
satisfy ; he gave no capacity which he does not in- 
tend shall find scope for everlasting accomplish- 
ment. 

I apprehend that the words of Scripture are 
often more literal than we suppose. The Christian 
really has truer possession of the things that now 
are, as well as ownership of the things that are to 
come. 

Alas! for the sorrowful, the lonely, and the 
hopeless, that refuse their rightful inheritance ! 

The diff'erence in the life of a believer and in 
that of an unbeliever is the difiference of eternity. 



11 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 79 

The latter plans for a few years, eiglity at most. 
He says, '* My faculties will improve for so long, 
and then decay ; my genius will lighten for so 
long, and then grow dim ; my friends are my 
friends while I live ; my children I love for all this 
life." The whole range of his thought of living is 
within a hundred years. 

But the Christian says, " My faculties may fail 
because of the failing of flesh ; but they will rally, 
and open, and grow forever. I am not improving 
myself for a few years' use, but for eternal ages. 
If my genius slumbers here, it will awake yonder, 
beyond the stars, and sparkle in the brightness of 
God's glory. My friends, familiar and dear, are 
to be mine, and our love is tostrengthen and deep- 
en forever. My children! the grave may hide 
them, but only for a moment ; they are mine^ for 
the cycles of eternity. Yea, and all that is in the 
universe is mine,- and God is mine, and I am his 
forever." 



The man who knows he has but one talent feels 
easier about improving it than he can who is con- 
scious of possessing many. 

The more a man rises the more earnest is he to 
do the work wliicli he was sent to do. Life seems 
short and every step of it full of his destiny. No 
iRan can do the woric of any other man. 



80 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

To persons sincerely anxious to leave the world 
wiser and better than they found it, but who feel as 
if they were as yet almost useless in. their genera- 
tion, let this thought give consolation. Many per- 
sons live out half their lives, some even three- 
quarters, before they come to the peculiar work 
which they were sent to do. Meantime they are 
doing good by shedding a right influence. 

The mourner over a wasted life may yet be shown 
that he was fruitful of good when he knew it not. 
From him there rnay be going sweet influences like 
the fragrance of flowers. 

Some people blossom almost as soon as they enter 
life, and then they depart. The flower that opens 
when it first breaks from the ground, and then 
dies, is an emblem of our infants that die. ^Yiolets 
are the children and youth who finish their mission 
near life's entrance, and then depart. We mourn 
for them, and say: "How mysterious! cut off 
when so full of promise !" but we should congratu- 
late them. 

Then there are June fiowers, and flowers that 
do not blossom till July or August. These latter, 
and the strong September flowers, go all the spring 
time, and for months after, gathering strength for 
final putting forth. Their time has not been 
wasted ; though to the eyes of those who know 
them not they have seemed but idle, homely things. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 81 

When they do pat forth they hold on bravely till 
the frost kills leaf and flower. 

Let not that man think his life wasted who can 
go home to heaven bearing blossoms, though late 
blossoms, on every limb. 

There is something beautiful to me in the thought 
that there is a specialty of work for each man. 

In work, as in character, disposition, history and 
destiny, there is a specialty ; and when the church 
arises to the New Jerusalem it will not be to sit there 
as one vast photographic likeness, nor shall one be 
able to say of its members, '' I have heard their his- 
tory," when the story of one has been told. 

The history of the church will be made up of in- 
dividual histories; and each one shall possess its 
own peculiar interest. 

Your history will be none the less interesting 
when mine has been told, nor mine when you have 
related yours. Tour head and heart will not be as 
mine, nor mine as youi^ ; we shall not be mere frag- 
ments of a universal church ; but we shall be fully, 
roundly, and conspicuously ourselves, in the church 
of which we make a whole, and perfect, and un- 
exampled individual. 

We regret that all Cln-ist's words wore not saved, 
even though tliey inultiplied books as John sup- 
poses they would. Yet we alreadv have more than 
I) 2 



82 LIVING WOKDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

we heed ; and necessity demands no more, though 
curiosity does. "When I remember how closely that 
rough, knotty, gnarled old Johnson was followed, 
and every word from his lips treasured up ; when I 
think how the words of that incarnation of refined 
selfishness, Goethe, were saved, I cannot but say in 
my heart : Why was there no such record kept of 
the sayings of the man Christ Jesus ? 



What labor seems too hard when it is done for 
love ? I don't think it would be very easy to induce 
me to become a basket-maker ; hut were it by that 
trade alone that I could hope to gain some maiden 
whom I loved, I would lihe to see the man who 
would si7ig more than I would over his vjeaving. 
Now to you whose lot in life is cast in some uncon- 
genial field, whose labor is with distaste and heavi- 
ness of heart, Christ says : '' Do it as if for me, I'll 
be your lover. Work where vou are for me, and 
my love shall reward you." 



The heart of woman yearns for love more than for 
any other thing, and when she asks it of God, he 
replies : '^ Certainly, my child, if you can bear all 
that goes with love." But if God loves her, and 
sees that she is asking what will do her harm, he " 
will not grant her prayer. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 83 

The man that prays for wealth may have it, if he 
is able to bear the discipline necessary to prevent 
it from proving his ruin. 

One who is bound for destruction may escape the 
stripes that will fall upon the Christianas back who 
attempts to set his heart on mortal lover, or on un- 
certain riches. 

They who make gods of goods, and go bowed 
down under the gold they carry, are worse off than 
they are who journey wearily over the hot sands of 
the desert. For the pilgrims have camels to bear 
their burdens, while they who trust in riches are 
their own beasts of burden. They crouch down 
and cry, " More, pile on more," and more is often 
given them ; for if a man will have his portion on 
earth it is sometimes given him, and so he goes toil- 
ing beneath his load, with gold on his back, and 
hell in his heart, down to destruction. 



It has ever been a mystery to the so-called Lib- 
erals, that the Calvinists, with what they have con- 
sidered their harshly despotic and rigid views and 
doctrines, should always have been the staunchest 
and bravest defenders of freedom. The working 
/or Liberty of these severe principles in the minds 
of those that adopted them has been a puzzle. But 
the truth lies here — Calvinism lias done wiiat no 



84 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

other religion has ever been able to do. It presents 
the highest hnman icleal to the world, and sweeps 
the whole road to destruction with the most appall- 
ing battery that can be imagined. It intensifies, 
beyond all example, the individuality of man, and 
shows in a clear and overpowering light his respon- 
sibility to God, and his relations to eternity. It 
points out man as entering life u-nder the weight of 
a tremendous responsibility ; having, on his march 
towards the grave, this oti^ sole chance of securing 
heaven and of escaping hell. 

Thus the Calvinist sees him pressed, burdened, 
urged on, by the most mighty influencing forces. 
He is on the march for eternity ; and is soon to 
stand crowned in heaven, or to lie sweltering in 
hell, thus to continue forever and ever. 

Who shall douve to fetter such a being ? Get out 
of his way ! Hinder him not ! or do it at the peril 
of your own soul. Leave him free to find his way 
to God. Meddle not with him or with his rights. 
Let him work out his salvation as he can. No 
hand must be laid crushingly upon a creature who 
is on such a race as this. A race whose end is to be 
eternal glory, or unutterable woe forever and 
forever. 

They tell us that Calvinism plies men with ham- 
mer and with chisel. It does ; and the result is 
the monumental marble. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 85 

Other systems leave men soft and dirty. Calvin- 
ism makes them of white marble to endure forever. 



You all hate tyrants ; but not half so much as 
God hates a slave. Not that he does not pity the 
DOor slave ; but when he looks on him he says, 
" This is not 7ny work. I never made this. This 
is not what I intended when I made a man. I 
made him in my image, to stand royally before me, 
to be united to me by loyal love, not to become a 
creature like this." 



When a man says to me, " When I saw that mo- 
ther weeping, and her house burning, and when I 
rushed into the flames, and at the peril of my own 
life saved and restored to her her child, am I to be 
told that that was not a good action — that it was a 
sin in the sight of God ?" 

Not by me, friend, not by me. That loas a good 
action. It was a hint of what there is planted in 
your nature by God ; and it shows your guilt in not 
coming to the Sun of Righteousness, that all such 
things within you may be warmed into a continual 
life. 

A man who is capable of such generous acts 
ought to be ashamed not to be what the love of God 
would make him. And if he will not love God, 



86 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

and be made into his image, he needs no other con- 
demnation. It is not by the fits and starts of your 
conduct that you are to be judged, but by its whole 
course. And if the centre and ruling principle of 
your life be not love to God, you are radically and 
fatally wrong. 

When we tell you that you are without God, you 
run and gather up all your occasional emotions of 
gratitude towards him, and of admiration for him, 
and heaping them together before us, say, "What! 
/ without God !" 

Now, you may feel admiration, even very warm 
admiration, for God — every refined and thoughtful 
mind must ; and perhaps, when you are on the 
summit of your joys, just as you cross the highest 
line, you look ofi*, and say, " Thank God ! thank 
God !" it may be very heartily ; but does your gra- 
titude and love for him go down beneath thought 
and feeling, and take hold upon the secret springs 
of your soul ? Is your life directed, ruled, and 
formed by that love ? Can you look upward 
and say, with glowing breast, " Father, Abba, 
Father!" 

If not, your love is but the starlight, and the 
moonlight, when it should be the light of the fervid 
sun. 

Why, when the sun shines with long, slant ray, 
on Greenland, what lives or thrives beneath its 



LlVIXa WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 87 

power? But when he pours down straight from 
liis meridian, there springs np life and luxuriant 
growth. 

Such love as you speak of is the slant beam of the 
winter sun, or like the shining of moonbeams on 
Nova Zembla. 

You cannot go to heaven with that love. You 
must be born again. Your course must be changed. 

Why, suppose a shipmaster starts from New 
York harbor for the Mediterranean Sea. He goes 
beautifully out of the harbor, and steers straight 
for Greenland. Off Newfoundland he is hailed by 
another sail. His destination is inquired and 
given. 

'' Bound for Malta !' ' shouts the stranger. " You ? 
Why, you're steering for the North Pole.'' 

" Don't tell me that^^ returns our ca]3tain, very 
much offended — '' Don't tell me that. My ship is 
good and well stored ; my men are good, and they 
find me the most generous of captains. They have 
long sleeping hours and short watches ; they have 
abundance of all that is good for food. In my 
cabin are plenty of books and flowers, and we have 
fine times down therei We enjoy ourselves very 
much indeed — don't tell me that all this time we 
are on our way to any place but Malta ; I don't be- 
lieve it." 

The stranger passes on, saying derisively : ^^ I 



88 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PIJLPIT. 

don't care how good you are to your men, or how 
many good books or beautiful flowers you have got 
below ; all this is very fine, no doubt ; but I say that 
the man that's going to Malta, and heading direct for 
the North Pole, is afool^ And so he is ; all his flow- 
ers won't save him. His course must be changed ; 
and it's just so about the sinner. He's heading for 
hell ; and all the flowers and all the good things 
that are in him won't save him, if he don't turn 
short about. He is living for self when he should 
be living for God. Self is his idol, when he should 
worship God. He is all wrong, wrong, and will 
certainly be lost if he doesn't come to Jesus for 
help, safety, and grace to flt him for heaven. 

" But," do you say : " must a man be converted 
when he is already good enough ?" 

Certainly not. If he is as good as conversion 
can make him, he may go to heaven on that 
ground; there is no jealousy Id the matter. If 
you can deserve heaven, God is perfectly willing 
that you should do so. 

If any of you can go to him and say truly, 
" Lord, I've always loved thee with all my heart, 
and strengthj and mind, and my neighbor as my- 
self — need I be converted? Can't I go to heaven 
as I am ?" God will answer : 

" Yes, certainly, you are like the angels, and need 
no conversion or redemption." 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 89 

Now I would like to see all in tJiis congregation 
who feel as though they could honestly say this to 
Gocl^ rise njp where they are. Iivould like to count 
them. What ! not one ? Is there not one in this 
great congregation who dare make such a plea ? 
Then you have no plea that will stand you for a 
moment. 

Suppose that some provision for all your past 
sins could be made, and you started to-morrow 
morning to begin life anew. Tou say to pride : 
'' Now, pride, you're not going to be master any 
more. I'm going to be master now ; I'll hold you 
in ; I'll tread on you." And you go forth and re- 
turn at night lamenting thus: ''Pride has over- 
come me, and ran away with me ; it has dashed me 
almost to atoms ; I cannot stand at all against its 
diabolical power." 

Then you say to your other passions, " Lie down. 
I will be master ;" and they rise up and roar at 
you ; they wrestle with and cast you down ; they 
rend and worry you, leaving you nigh to death. 
Then you begin to see what you are and where 
you are, and you bemoan yourself thus : '' I never 
was half so bad as this till I tried to grow better. 
I had not a thought of the strength of tlie evil 
nature in nie ; I cannot reform. Oh! wretched 
man that I am, icJio shall deliver me from the body 
of this death." jVcno you are in the right place to 



90 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

hear that Jesus Christ will deliver you. His 
power can convert you, and will do it if you are in 
earnest in asking. And then he will take care of 
your sins ; all you will have to do v/ill be to forget 
them. Go heartily to work for him ; work for him 
in your own heart, for you will always find plenty 
to do there ; and work for him in the world, in 
your business, your studies, your pleasure, your 
whole life, work for him. Your most radical and 
central ideas must be Godward before you will be 
headed right and sailing heavenward. Beware ! 
if a slow-match be placed by the magazine, you 
may heap the building with gardens full of flowers, 
but they will not save you from being blown sky- 
high when the fire reaches the powder. 

Oh ! men ! men ! men ! struck through with the 
rottenness of sin, come out of the darkness, escape 
for your lives. Ye young, come to the light, come 
to joy, come to immortal life. 



If all unkind and unjust words were arrows, like 
needles and pins ; and if, instead of piercing the 
ear and then, the heart, they flew against the bodies 
of those to whom they were directed, the child- 
ren in some men's families would be like pin- 
cushions stuck completely full of sharp and painful 
weapons. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH rCLPIT. 91 

The command of Christ to take up the cross has 
been signally and widely misunderstood. The 
Christian life presents so broad a front, that all 
views blend in it. This is but one. . They err who 
would make it the characteristic of religion. 

Deny thyself, and take thy cross ; but still be not 
seeking for burdens. If the Lord says to thee, ^' Go 
forward," go^ though the next step be over a preci- 
pice five hundred feet deep, where far below you 
trees look like grass. The air may become solid 
beneath your feet ; but if not, go forward where 
duty calls, and the end shall be peace and life ; but 
don't be ever feeling as if the burden of the Lord 
was heavy, and to be borne with groans, and bent 
frame, and sighings — or that you must turn from 
life's pleasures, merely because they are pleasures, 
and it would be denying yourself to forsake them. 

Christianity asks no such sacrifices. She gives 
fullness to the joys of life, saying only, walk in the 
love and fear of God ; rejoice freely in all life's 
pure pleasures, but murmur not if God see fit to 
take them from you. Be patient when the trial 
comes, but be not seeking poverty of any eartlily 
delight. 

Not such Jesuitical notions are those of Christ- 
ianity. Men arc not called upon to empty them- 
selves of the loves of earth, and to become ghostly, 
and ghastly despisers of its warmth and beauty. 



92 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

They are called to bring all that is natural within 
them, given of God in the beginning, and have it 
sanctified, then love shall tell them where to take 
up the cross, and where to deny themselves ; and 
soon there will be only strength in the cross, and 
choice in the self-denial ; for as the higher faculties 
grow and rise, the lower will cause less and less 
pain in submitting. They will mind quickly, at the 
first start of their superiors, and what was sore self- 
denial will be so no lono-er. 



The time when Christians will be no longer called 
to poverty and hardness, to narrowness and com- 
monness of outward life, is coming. "We are on the 
edges of it, and therefore I speak to warn you to 
consecrate your prosperity and your pleasures to 
the Lord. The earth is the Lord's, and the fullness 
thereof ; and all that is rich, and tasteful, and beau- 
tiful, he will give into the hands of his own child- 
ren. The devil has stolen the wealth and beauty 
of this world ; but he cannot retain it. All that 
taste and riches can command is yet to be bestowed 
upon the church ; when she shall have become so 
pure that she can stand blameless, generous, honest, 
and humble, in prosperity and luxury. Christians 
have yet to learn — and they will learn it — the les- 
son of humility and godliness in the midst of riches. 



It 



LIVING WORDS FKOM rLYMOUTH PULPIT. 93 

They will learn how to walk aright not in sack- 
cloth, but in velvet ; how to be not only steadfast 
under afl9.iction, but under blessing. They will be 
able to endure not only hardness, but what is far 
more dangerous, softness — and will be able to bear 
not only defeat and baffling, but victory. 



I WISH that I could see a right sort of prayer- 
meeting. We have better prayer-meetings here 
than they do in many places ; but I have heard in 
this lecture-room prayers that I don't think went 
higher than the ceiling, and talks that had no life 
in them, said simply because you had come to say 
something, and thought that was about the right 
thing to say. 

Now if I could hear a man standing up in his 
place, say, 

'' I'm cross at home. I trouble my wife. I am 
harsh and ungentle to my children. I don't repre- 
sent to them at all the character of God. Indeed, 
I'm afraid if God were presented to them as their 
father^ that they would be more inclined to run 
away from him than if they viewed him solely as 
a judge. My brethren, I don't want to be such a 
wicked Christian. I am sorry and sad because I 
am such. Can you tell me how to improve ?" 

Or : '' Brethren, I'm stingy — dreadful stingy and 



94 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

harsh. I do give sometimes ; but it comes very 
hard. I want to get as much work out of every- 
body as I can for the least pay. I try to be prudent 
by getting good bargains out of other people. 
When I can buy a good garment at half price, or 
when I can get a day's work out of a poor person 
for half a day's wages, I generally do it. Can any 
of 3^ou show me how to get a generous heart?" 

Or : '' I'm growing rich, and I feel the swellings 
of vanity and self-importance already beginning in 
my heart. Can you tell me how to keep humble, 
and to glorify God in what I keep for myself, as 
well as in what I give away ?" 

Then I should say we are having a genuine work 
of grace in our meeting. My people, we must 
make our religion fit our times, our dispositions, 
and our wants, and not try to torture ourselves into 
the shapes of ancient times. The first Christians 
were forced to apply religion chiefly to supporting 
themselves under losses, privations, and persecu- 
tions ; but we need to apply it more in other direc- 
tions. Our tempers, our households, our business, 
our political duties, our pecuniary circumstances, 
must all be guided by religion, or we are faithless 
in our generation. 

I don't know which is most lovely and admir- 
able, a poor and devoted saint at the very gate of 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 95 

starvation, who is full of love and grace, and who 
is ever doing good, or a rich and lifted up saint, 
who, with not a want that need go ungratified, who 
is yet as pure and humble, as self-denying and 
generous as though he had never known wealth. 
But the latter needs most grace to keep him. 



The world is God's journal ^^'herein he writes 
his thoughts, and traces his tastes. The world 
overflows with beauty. Beauty should no more bo 
called trivial, since it is the thought of God. 
Through beauty things become useful. It is a 
religious duty for a man, so far as honestly he 
can, to surround his children with creations of taste 
and beauty, that their finer instincts may be cul- 
tured and gratified. The love of beauty is the gift 
of God, and it is born in the heart of every child. 



Many good people think it wrong to indulge in a 
taste for the fine arts. They are even much exer- 
cised by conscience for wearing expensive clothing. 
They lay off broadcloth and silks, and dress in lin- 
sey-woolsey ; but they may then still retrench and 
retrench, that they may have more for the poor ; 
, for this principle, caiTicd out, would lead back to 
I barbarism. It is not the right one. Every man 
I Bhould do his part for the poor, and his heart shovlj 



96 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

enlarge as his means increase / but he who can earn 
them has a right to refinements for himself and for 
his children. 

Men have got to learn how to unite the elegances 
of high polish and luxury with self-denying humil- 
ity and generosity ; they have got to learn how to 
revel amid the delights of music, poetry and paint- 
ing, and not be hurt by any or all of these before 
the millennium will be fully established ; for God's 
children are to walk amid all the good and beauti- 
ful things of the earth, and be holy there. No 
man has any business to be unrefined, or neglectful 
of the cultivation of taste. By the love of nature ; 
by music and poetry, and painting ; by flowers, 
and by the neatness and elegance of household 
appliances, grossness will be destroyed. It is a 
mark of a sinking nature to be indifferent to every- 
thing but food, clothing and shelter. Beauty in 
the house, beauty on the person, beauty all around, 
should be a man's aim ; and every home should 
resound with melody, and be bright with the 
results of genius and taste — thus will be the homes 
of the latter day. 

It is more worthy of a Christian man to take 
gladly and gratefully all these delights, and to 
learn to carry himself aright in the use of them, 
than it is to refuse them all, and go stinted and 
Btarved of beauty, through the world. 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 97 

Accustom your children to the elegancies, refine- 
iiients and beauties of life, while at the same time 
you train them robustly in the exercise of all 
that is good within them. Thus they shall grow 
up around you elegant, refined, beautiful ; and as 
agreeably^ as they are thoroicghly^ good ; which will 
be a very great advantage that they will have over 
some of the good people of the present day, who 
are the most disagreeable people on earth. 

Clothes and manners don't make the man ; but 
when he is made, they improve his appearance. 



The sweetest and most generous natures are the 
ones in greatest danger of becoming soured through 
the ino-ratitude of the world. 



The family is the first, and by far the most im- 
portant, institution in the world. It is the true 
church ; the best expounder of the truths of Christ- 
ianity. It is from the family that the only real 
idea of the relationship between God and man can 
be obtained ; for God is more a father than he is a 
kmg, or a judge ; and thus men should be taught to 
regard him. Paternity is tlie strangest of life's 
mysteries, and the most solemn. Men C(^mc here to 
watch that the priest teach his churrh riglit things. 

Look at homo, father priest, mother priest, your 

E 



98 LIVING Yv^ORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

cliurch is a hundredfold heavier responsibility than 
mine can be. Your priesthood is from God's own 
hands, and it is a solemn thing to have God lay his 
hands upon you in paternity — to give you a church 
from your own loins. You would all condemn 
the man who should rush with haste and levity into 
the ministry ; but not half so worthy of condemna- 
tion would he be, as they are who enter thought- 
lessly, led but by fancy and youthful inclination^ 
into the marriage state, and are constituted priests 
of the family. They are the formers of immortal 
characters as no other priests can ever be. Let 
them look well to how they form them. 

Children are not given primarily for your love^ 
or for your amusement, though incidentally they 
are for these ; nor are they given for a staff for your 
old age, though they shall be this also, if you are 
the wise support of their youth ; but they are given 
for your education, and to become, like you, inde- 
pendent beings. 

You are not to consider them as burdens, or to 
repine that you are wearing out your life for them, 
but you are to guide them carefully ; to instruct 
them fully in the path by which they are to jour- 
ney when they may no longer cling to your hand. 
Teach them so that when you leave them to go on 
alone, they may know how to steer for the safe 
haven. If you do your duty faithfully, you will 



IJVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 99 

reap your reward as you go along; if you fail, 
hitter will be your punishment ; for no keener suf- 
fering can be known on eartli, than, that which 
the heart of a parent bleeds under when the 
hand that administers it is the hand of his own 
child. 

A man who has never had the care nor felt the 
love of little children, who has not been taught self- 
denial by his desire for their good, is, so far forth, 
not a perfect man. 

I do not say that the discipline must of necessity 
come through children of his own blood ; but he 
must be taught of childhood, or he is forever 
unfinished. 



For a poisoned heart there is nothing in the 
world so poisonous as men. It is not well to see too 
much of men. 



I cAx conceive of a state of public sentiment 
and morals, in which there might properly be 
free utterance of truths, which in the present 
state of society a minister has not a right to 
express. 

The people could not understand or bear tlieni 
now, and to speak tliem out would be to touch 
morality, and to cause great evil. Tliis, in tlie days 



100 LIVING WOKDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

oi Christ and his apostles, was the case in regard to 
many truths which it is now the leading duty of his 
ministers to proclaim boldly. As the ages pass, the 
circumstances of men change, and truth must be 
brought to bear on men as they can bear it. Pre- 
mature developments work mischief. This prin- 
ciple both Christ and his disciples fully recognized, 
and many yet are the secret truths of God. The 
future will unfold them as they are needed. 



When sick of humanity, away to the desert, the 
forest, or the ocean shore ; there is bahn in nature 
for the wounded and weary heart ; healing is in 
all her low uttered voices. 



Men who were to treat their social affections as 
we treat our religious ones, would be regarded as 
fools — and with reason. While we are busied with 
the pressing affairs of life, we cannot feel the glow 
of religious affection — nor is it expected. If, when 
the pauses of business come (not when we pause 
from exhaustion, but in the leisure hours) — our soul 
gladly returns unto its love; or if, when in the 
hurry of work and trade, a question of principle 
comes up, our thoughts glance quickly Godward, 
and we decide as in his presence^ we need not fear 



LIVING WORDS FKOM rLTMOUTH PULPIT. 101 

that we are in a cold, back-slidden state, though wo 
be, indeed, very diligent in business. To have the 
fear of the Lord always before one, it is not neces- 
sary that one should be always directly thinking of 
him, or of spiritual things. This is impossible in 
those pauses of daily life, where it is our duty 
to concentrate thought upon secular concerns. 
"Ye cannot serve God and mammon,'' has been 
perverted to mean that it was unchristian for a man 
ever to give his whole attention to money mak- 
ing. 

Now^ the whole attention of a man must be given 
to study, during study hours, or he will never make 
a scholar; and it must be equally given to business, 
during business hours, or he will never succeed in 
the proper support of his family, or the Gospel. 
When the work and tlie strain is over, then the 
soul of the Christian will consciously rejoice in the 
Lord. 

What if I, on awaking, were to say: '^Now, I 
w^ill love my family with all my heart — nothing 
shall, this day, interfere with my love for them,'' 
and were then to go into a furious fervor about it, 
embracing and kissing them, and declaring my 
affection for th'em. I might try to work, with my 
mind so hotly fixed on them, but I could not do it. 
I should soon say : '' I can't hunt up these texts — I 
can't write these sermons — they require my wliolo 



102 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

attention, and that is not justice to nay wife and 
children — they turn away iny thoughts and affec- 
tions from my family — I will no longer try to work 
at them." I then impatiently toss books and 
papers aside, and devoting myself to the decla- 
rative form of love for my family, forget all else. 
How much good should I do them under such cir- 
cumstances ? The tl'ue w^ay to prove my love for 
them is, to devote myself steadily to some way of 
supporting them. Then, at the season of relaxa- 
tion from work, I shall be sure to enjoy them and 
their love. 

Just so in spiritual matters ; for the family is the 
best teacher of theology. The men who walk in 
lonely places, thinking only of God and the angels, 
are not the most reliable Christians — are not the 
bone and sinew of the church. This has been 
proved throughout the ages. 

Any such thought of the things unseen and 
eternal, as shall unfit a man for his daily secular 
duties, or teach him to despise them, is wrong 
thought, and should be discarded. Religion un- 
derlies all things. It is intended to fit a man for 
life— to teach him how to carry himself in his busi- 
ness, his pleasures, and his pains, as much as to aid 
him when he dies. It was not meant to lift him 
out of, or beyond, the common work or wants of 
life, until life is passed. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 103 

The frozen ship wliicli, last week, came strug- 
gling towards New York harbor, is a figure of 
man's soul before grace enters it. 

Look at her condition ! Her ropes and rigging 
incased in shining ice ; her men mailed in ice — ice 
in their hair, ice on their beards, their feet and 
legs clad in the frozen mail, the gauntlets on 
their hands heavy and stiff with the same cold 
armor, and their hearts freezing in them from long 
struggling and despair. The pumps must be 
worked incessantly, to keep the ice-loaded ship 
afloat ; but the strokes fall slower and slower, for 
the life is congealing in the arms of the hopeless 
mariners. 

Hark! a hail. See! a pilot-boat is near. An- 
other moment, and the pilot is on board. 

" Give me the helm," he says to the worn-out 
man at the wheel. ''I know just where you 
are, and will get you safe into port in a few 
hours." 

The men find themselves suddenly endowed with 
new powers of motion. They rush about the 
decks, obeying the pilot's orders. Tliey pull at the 
ropes ; they rattle the icy shrouds, they make tlie 
crust fly from the tackling. Up the slippery rat- 
lines they climb ; they dash from the frozen rigging 
masses which before they could not move. The 
cordage creaks and groans, and its shivered mail 



104 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

rattles down upon the decks ; sails are reefed and 
unreefed, thej hoist this sheet, and take in that, 
all with the same stiff and frozen hands and limbs 
which, an hour before, were yielding to the torpor 
of death. 

Cheerfulness is on all faces, hope in every heart. 
They have got a pilot. He will guide them into 
port. Their lives are saved. 

The soul is that ice-bound vessel; its unrenewed 
powers are those ice-clad, helpless men. Grace is 
the pilot, whose coming renews the life and hope 
of all. 

And grace alone can encourage one who has 
once seen himself to be in the wretched condition 
which has been described. Grace can strengthen 
and cheer; it can guide the soul into the safe 
haven. Without it there is no true life — only frost 
and ice, and hopeless and heavy gloom, ending in 
eternal death. 



I WOULD pave hell with doubts ; yea, I would 
so fill and choke it up with doubts that it could 
contain nothing else, could I by that undo the 
reality of it, and necessity for it. 



Hours are like sponges — they wipe out good 
resolutions. 



I 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOrTH PULPIT. 105 

No man ever becomes a Christian by beginning 
with his outward life. Reformation is not religion ; 
though it often precedes, and always accompanies 
it. He who is constantly laboring to reform his 
conduct, and to square his life by the rules of 
morality while his heart is not right with God, has 
all the burden and cross of religion, but none of its 
peace. 

And he will never gain much upon the work he 
is trying to do ; for, if the very faults, from which 
he has for a time escaped, do not overtake him, 
others, perhaps worse, will^ as long as the principle 
within him remains unchanged. He may, with 
strong hand and iron will, curb the outgoings of 
pride and passion in some old direction, but they 
will find new courses. There is no curing effects 
until causes are reached. 



Camping down upon the edges of a sin from 

which a man has just escaped, is dangerous work. 

A person in such a position is like one who, upon 

finding himself in the running current of a river 

which is rising, swollen by heavy rains, struggles 

desperately until he reaches its banks, and there 

settles himself in false security. In the morning, 

the waters of the freshet are booming about him, 

and he fiies to the meadow, a little higher. I>ut 
i: 2 



106 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PCLPIT. 

tlie floods are out, and they rise and rise, faster 
than he can run, and the man who, by fleeing at 
once to the mountains^ when he came up from the 
river, would have been saved, by tarrying upon 
the lowlands, perishes. 



Never was there such a contrast in a conversa- 
tion as that presented in the conversation between 
Christ and the woman of Samaria. Christ speak- 
ing from the top of all spiritual apprehension, the 
woman from the bottom of sensuous knowledge. 



In the higher sense, there is no right action 
without right motive, and the only right motive is, 
Love to God, 

You may spend your whole life picking ofi* your 
old dried leaves and dead branches, but if in the 
centre springs of your soul you are not subdued to 
God, your work, although rewarded in this life, as 
all morality is, will not be accepted in heaven. 

I have seen a gardener at. work upon a tree 
which had a worm gnawing into it at the point 
where the root and the trunk united. The earth 
hid the worm, and so, when the leaves withered, 
the owner went and picked them off*, and washed 
the tree with the various things that he had heard 
recommended for diseased trees. 



LIVING WOPwDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 107 

When the branches began to perish he hewed 
them off, and he worked and worked all summer at 
that tree, but it died. Xow, had the gardener 
called for a spade, and removed the earth about 
the roots, and Ttilled that worrn^ he might have 
given himself no farther trouble about the withered 
leaves, or the dying branches. There would have 
been no more of them. 



.The reason why inquirers cannot find the peace 
for which they seek, is because there is self-will 
hidino; somewhere out of si2:ht : like the main- 
spring of a watch, which cannot be seen, and 
which yet is the very life of motion in the watch, 
self-will is the ruling power in every sinner's heart. 
It lurks in such darkness that the man himself can- 
not always see it. But often he knows very well 
where it is snugged away ; and when conviction 
comes upon him, when he longs to be religious 
and at peace, he goes with a candle into every 
place where this rebel is not, to hunt him out and 
make him surrender to God. Into all the cham- 
bers of his soul he goes with his candle. He sees 
how sinful he is in them, and he freely opens them 
to God's cleansing. lie never set much store by 
anything in these rooms ; but there is a dark, close 
closet in the mansion, from which the sinner keeps 



108 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

carefully away. He don't thrust his candle in 
tliere^ and say to the thing that cowers within, 
" There you are ; come out and be made captive." 
Oh ! no. This is the worm at the core ; and you 
may go on with your hard working out your salva- 
tion till you die ; and if you do not unearth him, 
you will land in perdition. 

This enemy will lurk in a closet only while he is 
hunted for. A culprit is hid in a house ; the oJBfi- 
cers come to seek for him ; the master of the man- 
sion shows them hither and thither, bids them 
open this door, and that ; go up garret, and down 
cellar, and be satisfied. But when they pass a 
panel in which there is a secret spring, he says 
not a word about it ; and it remains untouched. 

The officers are satisfied that the man they seek 
is not there, and they depart. When the door 
shuts behind them., the panel opens, and a face is 
seen at the window watching them away. 

Now the culprit is out. He walks about the par- 
lors, the halls, the chambers, just as he was wont, 
until there is a sound as of returning footsteps; 
when he instantly vanishes behind the closing panel. 

Thus difficult to discover is the hiding-place of 
self-will. When once that principle is reached 
and grasped, the whole man can be easily guided. 
He is guided whithersoever that subtile principle 
wills that lie should 2:0. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 109 

Look at that stately ship. What a mighty hull 
she has — three hundred feet long ; her masts a hun- 
dred feet liio-h. How well set is her rif^o:ino:, how 
clearly defined her spars. We may see her dis- 
tinctly, but not all. Away down mider the water, 
hiding at the ship's stern, there is a little plank that 
is of more importance than all that so proudly 
towers on the breast of the billows. 

Neither hull, nor decks, nor main-mast, nor 
mizzen-mast, nor bowsprit, nor yards, nor sails, 
would be of any use without that plank down nnder 
water. Suppose that some person, ignorant of this 
fact, should attempt to guide that ship's course. 
He would say, in despair, after wearing himself out 
with fruitless efforts : '' What does ail this ship ? ] 
have pulled at her bows ; I have furled and unfurled 
her sails ; I have tugged at every rope in her, but 
she will not keep her course. I cannot manage 
her. She will do nothing right. What can it 
mean?" 

K'ow, suppose an old salt should say, " Have you 
tried the wheel ?'' 

''Wheel?" says the man, ''what wheel? No; 
I've tried no wheel." 

" Lay hold here, my hearty," cries the sailor. 

The landsman grasps the wheel, and the little plank 

•below turns two inches, and the ship, though she be 

ten times as lari^e, and ten times as heavily laden, 



110 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

moves submissively round to the strength of one 
man's hand. 

Now you may tug at your topmasts, or toil at 
your bows, and you will die with your course all 
wrong. You never will head for the safe harbor 
till you take your stand at the wheel. 



]!^EVER think that God is going to make a Christ- 
ian out of you without effort of your own. When 
the lion crouches down before you, and his eyes 
glare upon you, and he is about to spring, you need 
not expect Providence to fire your gun for you ; 
you must do it yourself or die. 'Tis kill or be 
killed with you then. God has already done his 
part in the work of your salvation. If you don't 
choose to do your part you will perish. 



The moralist says, '' It has cost me severe labor to 
be as good as I am ; how shall I ever be able to do 
greater things than these ?" Friend, there is a rock 
which on one side is ^supported by the solid earth, 
on another side by other rocks, on a third by trees, 
but upon the fourth side it has no support, and it 
requires there but a few pounds' weight to tip it 
downward. 

Now you may go and destroy yourself in efforts 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. Ill 

to remove that rock, and only imbed it deeper 
in tlie earth, or fasten it more firmly in the trees or 
among other rocks ; but, push it i'/i the right direc- 
tion. and it is no lono:er there. I tell vou it would 
not be half so hard to be a great deal better 
Christian, than to be the moralist you are. Tou 
are all the time pushing the rock the wrong way. 
Do you say : '' Well, it is the most earnest desire 
of my life to become a Christian. What lack I 
yet ? What is in the way ?" I cannot tell — I 
might tell, in particular cases, but not generally. 
But, 'tis a question that each one can answer for 
himself, if he is sincere in wishing to know. 

God will answer all prayer for help in such cases, 
when it is patiently and honestly continued. 



The law is a battery which protects all that is 
behind it, but sweeps with destruction all that is 
before. Eepenting toward the law is repentiug 
toward destruction, but repenting toward God is 
repenting toward life and peace. 

We count it marvellous that Christ bore our sins 
a few hours for us. Ah! God bore them long 
before — he bears them yet. Tlie agony upon the 
cross was but one outshining upon us of his unut- 
terable pity and love. 'Tis not at cold, bloodless, 
senseless law, that we strike by sin ; but straight 



112 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

home upon the throbbing, yearning heart of God, 
our Father. 

Tlie world has an ugly way of forgiving. It can 
forgive ; but as to forgetting^ that's quite another 
thing ; and it must give the offender its mind. It 
sets him down before the blowpipe of its indigna- 
tion, and scorches him through and through. Now 
that is not the way that God forgives — he runs to 
meet a penitent while he is yet a great way off. 
Buns is the figure — not waits, not walks — runs ^ 
and he don't tell the trembling sinner what he 
thinks of him ; he don't excoriate, bruise, and 
taunt, as the world does, till the penitent wishes a 
hundred times that he never had repented ; but — as 
he himself declares — he forgives with no upbraiding ; 
and tha transgressions of the sinner shall not be 
even mentioned to him, or rernembered against him^ 
any more. 

There are sitting before me, in this congregation, 
now two hundred men who stuff their Sundays full 
of what they call religion, and then go out on Mon- 
days to catch their brothers by the throat, saying : 
'' Pay me that thou owest ; it's Monday now, and 
you needn't think that because we sat crying toge- 
ther yesterday' over our Saviour's sufferings and 
love, that I'm going to let you off from that debt, 
if it does ruin you to pay it now." 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 113 

Fear, in its normal action, leads towards hope. 
In its place it is good ; but when you find that it 
leads to despondency, be snre that 'tis out of its 
place, and acting morbidly. "Water is good to float 
timber, but a water-logged tree will certainly sink. 
Don't allow yourself to be water-logged by fear or 
anxiety. 



Bad men may keep up long, but when once they 
fall they cannot rise again. They are like apples I 
have seen hanging from a tree, round and fair as 
they could be, but also inside as rotten as they 
could be. As long as they could swing upon 
their stem they did well enough, but when they had 
fallen and smashed upon the ground, I never heard 
of their being made good apples of afterwards. 



A MAN who makes calculation and provision for 
this life only, is like a sea captain who, starting on 
a voyage to Europe, lays in provisions sufficient to 
last him only until he gets safe past the lighthouse, 
and out into the open sea. 



There arc some men's souls that are so thin, so 
almost destitute of what is the true idea of soul, that 
were not the guardian angels so keen-sighted they 
would alt02:etl]er overlook them. 



114 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Men are differently built. There are men who 
are broad and strong at the base, in the middle, and 
np until you reach the moral faculties. These are 
shrunken in, and almost vanished. 

Such men are like lighthouses, built well at the 
bottom, and all the way up. All right, only they 
have no lantern, and no light. And the two things, 
the man and the house, are equally valuable. 



Each one is at liberty to fashion God so that his 
thought can clasp him ; else there can be no love 
to God. Make him to suit your want, and you 
will have gratitude and love to him. 

Some people, when they think of God, have a 
vague idea of greatness — and when they pray, they 
pray into nothing, hoping that, perchance, some 
good angel will gather up their prayers, and bear 
them into the divine presence. 



All truth is equilibrated. Pushing any truth 
out very far, you are met by a counter truth. A 
man generally runs one truth out till he meets an- 
other, and then he drops his first truth and goes 
over to its counter. By and by he swings back and 
gains his true position, that of a hub in ^ wheel, 
with all truth pointing towards him^, and meeting 
where he stands. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 115 

The truth of man's freedom, carried to a certain 
extent, is met by his dependence upon, and action 
according to, the will of God. The truth of a man's 
individuality meets, at a certain point, tlie truth of 
his sociality of being. These things are all true, 
and to be rights a man must be on loth sides. 



The idea of right living seems to be, with some 
men, not doing anylJiing wrong ^ as if righteousness 
consisted in negatives. '' Why," says the man 
charged. with being a sinner worthy of death, 
'^ why, I never hurt anybody in my life ; I never 
committed a sin in my life — that is, you know, a 
real sin. You don't mean that I should be shut out 
of heaven were I now to die." 

Perhaps the man puts great restraint upon him- 
self, and is really at a great deal of trouble not to 
do wrong. He keeps himself shut in very closely, 
even more so than many a real Christian does ; but 
if he be not right at the springs of life, he is on the 
way to eternal ruin just as surely as is the thief 
or murderer, though on a different charge, and 
though he is, as far as this world goes, a far better 
man. 

But what ship-owners would justify the captain 
who should say to them, upon returning from some 
foreign land, '' Here is your ship in tlie same order 



116 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

as when I took her. I have not harmed her, nor 
used her for unlawful or piratical purposes. She is 
empty ^ to he sure ; I have done no business for you ; 
but here is that which is yours." 

God has sent men out upon the sea of time. 
They are freighted as no ship ever was. Do you 
think that he will exonerate them if they dare to 
go up before him with a plea like that just urged ? 
Our talents must be improved, that at his coming 
he may receive his own with nsnry. 

It is a man's duty to bring the influence of love 
to God to bear on every faculty of his soul, that it 
may be educated and expanded thereby. A man 
should live in every part of himself, and not be con- 
fined to one, two, or six apartments. The world 
calls a man made or ruined when he has made or 
lost— -what? "Wife, children, character, honor, 
reason ? Oh, no — not these ; but money ! Thafs 
the thing in which the world makes '^ the life " of 
man to consist. Ships are made in various com- 
partments, each air and water-tight, so that when a 
rock dashes through the bows of the hull, the good 
ship does not sink, because there are enough other 
compartments to buoy her np till she gets where 
she can be overhauled for repairs ; but men who 
have naturally the means of outfloating all the 
storms, and all the leakages of life, allow most of 
their compartments to become ruinous for want of 



LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 117 

use and care. And then, when into the one, or 
perhaps two or three compartments where they 
do live, bursts the sunken reef, they are foundered 
at once. The waters dash in upon them, and they 
are gone — sunk like a bullet in the sea. 

And for this they will be brought into judgment. 
No man has any right to live in his animal nature, 
or in his affections, in his tastes and sentiments, in 
his reason and intellect, or even in his moral na- 
ture, to the undue depression of the rest of himself. 
He should open his whole house, and let light 
stream into and gleam from the windows of every 
apartment. Te who live otherwise are dead while 
you live. But Christ can give you life. Come 
unto him. 



Make it clear that Christ on earth, with his 
fathomless love, his unutterable pity, his divine 
gentleness, and quick and tender notice of all 
appeals from the humble and poor, was different, 
in Jcind^ from what he is in heaven — prove that he 
acted from design, more than from the impulse of 
character, and that now the tenderness of that 
strange love and pity is no more, and you take away 
ray Lord, and I know not where ye have laid him. 
You have robbed me of my God. But now I look 
upon the story of his acts on earth, when he was, in 
some sort, fettered by flesh, and the laws which arc 



118 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

the masters of flesh, and I say, '' If his pity, and his 
patience, and his love, were such as this while here, 
what must they he now, in their fall expansion V' 

Christ came to die for our sins ; but he came also 
to show us what is the character of God — to teach 
us, by lessons that we can understand, what sort 
of disposition he has who made us ; and now, in- 
stead of wishing to go back 1800 years, in order to 
sit at his feet in Jerusalem, let us rejoice that every 
year brings us nearer to the hour when we shall go, 
not to Jesus hampered by fleshly laws, and shrouded 
as lights are from the eyes of the sick — but to 
our Saviour glorified and waiting to welcome his 
children and his brothers to their long-sought 
home. 

I would have loved to listen to my Saviour as he 
taught upon the plains, or on the mountains, or in 
the cities of Judea ; I would have loved to sit at 
his feet, to watch his looks as he uttered the blessed 
words that are recorded; I would have loved to 
speak with him, face to face — to have seen his smile 
—to have touched his hands ; but, thank God ! I can 
do better than that — I can have him, and can hold 
him in my heart of hearts, as that sweet Friend ' 
and Comforter, who could not come down to 
earth till the man^ Christ Jesus, was received up 
into heaven. By love I am conjoined to him, 
and I feel his soul touch mv soul. Thus I can 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 119 

abide with him until I see him, face to face, in 
heaven. 



It seems a hard thing to realize, that so great 
and high a being, and one so holy as God is, should 
trouble himself at all about man — a worm — one of 
these little anrfino; worms that crawls out of his 
earthy hole, and suns himself a moment, and then 
crawls in again. But if even the hairs of our heads 
are all numbered — if he takes notice of hair^ than 
which nothing seems more worthless, ^tis a lifeless 
thing that we cut and throw^ away — a mere appen- 
dage, i\iQ fringe of a m.an — what notice must God 
take of OUT living hearts *^ our thoughts, which are 
but the souls of things? We can no longer believe 
that thoughts and hearts are a matter of small mo- 
ment to him who made us. He knows us each one 
by name, by disposition, by character, and he 
loved us before we were born. IsTow when he 
asks us to love and trust in him, he only asks what 
we know perfectly welh Aaz^ to do — what, ever 
since we were born, we have been doing, only not 
towards him. Didn't we love our mother ? Was it 
hard to love her j Don't we trust our friends ? Is 
it hard to trust them ? 

But where is there mother, or father, or friend, 
\ like God ? And do you say, '' It is liard to love 



120 LIYINa WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT.' 

and tTust in him ?" Or do you say : ^' 1 believe 
in fore-ordination, and am waiting ' God's time.' " 

Fore-ordination ! that is a shameful sham. God's 
time is '' now," he never has any other time. Fore- 
ordination is nothing for you to meddle with, any 
moi^ in religious than in money-making matters. 
In each it is in equal force, but 'tis God's business, 
not yours. If you will meddle with it, you deserve 
to get befogged and puzzled, though there's nothing 
against, but everything for you in it. But let it 
alone, if it troubles you. 

What farmer, when the sun runs high, and the 
earth is ready for the seed, and the small rain and 
the dew are coming on the earth, says : "I believe 
in fore-ordination; I shall not take the trouble to 
plant. If I'm to have a harvest, I shall have one." 

Or what merchant, when he goes to his store in 
the morning, says: ''If I'm to have a good large 
heap of money in my till to-night, I shall have it 
there. No need for me to trouble myself to please 
customers, I believe in fore-ordination." 

Men are not fools enough for. this in temporal con- 
cerns, though plenty of them are so in regard to the 
interests of their immortal souls. No, when they 
see God working for them in nature^ they take 
hold, with a right good will, and work too. And, 
as a general thing, they gain the blessing for which 
they strive. In other words, they do, in these 



LIYING WOEDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 121 

minor matters, " work with God," to will and to 
do of his own good pleasure ; but when it comes to 
s^itual work, they hold quickly back, and ex- 
claim : '' Oh ! fore-ordination !" But this will be no 
plea for them, when they come forth from their 
graves ; and when, from mountain and valley, and 
from the dark waves of the sea, they lift up their 
blanched faces to their Judge. Of all the myriads 
who will stand before him, there will not be one 
who will have a word to say — they will "be 
speechless." For Jive dollars sl man will appeal to 
a higher court. He will go from court to court, 
sooner than lose " his rightsJ^ He will have new 
trials, if such a thing can be accomplished, and 
spend three times the sum for which he is contend- 
ing, sooner than he will submit to be wronged out 
^of it. Men do not suffer injustice tamely, but here, 
where all that is of value to the never-dying soul 
is at stake, here, just upon the edge of the ever- 
lasting and most dreadful woe ; here, where, if 
there was one single consideration which would tell 
for them, they would be most patiently and gladly 
I heard, there will not be found one — not one — who 
shall have the assurance to utter a single syllable. 
So clear will be to tliein the utter folly and will- 
, fulness of their self-ruin, that when sentence is 
I pronounced, they will turn in dead silence from 

•j the face of Ilim who sought them all their lives, 

F 



122 LIVING- WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

and veiling their faces, they will take the plunge, 
from which he could not save them. There will be 
but one expression, and one wail through all that 
endless falling, and that will be : '^ Soul, thuu hast 
destroyed thyself." 



BECOMiNa a Christian is not becoming better than 
one's neighbor ; it is becoming better than one's 
self. It has no reference whatever to other people. 
ISTo one need to feel, when his neighbor becomes a 
Christian, " That man has set up to be better than 
we are now, we will therefore watch him, and see 
how his saintship gets along." 

The language of a man standing here to enter 
the church is not, as many suppose, '^I have be- 
come so good that I think it will do for me to 
join myself to Christians." Far from it; his lan- 
guage is, " I have come to see that I am so wicked 
and so helpless that I cannot stand alone. I am not 
fit to stand out in the world. I shall certainly 
perish there. Oh! brethren, I have got my eyes 
open to my danger and my sin ; I have had a 
vision of the Lord Jesus Christ, of his love and pity 
for me. I am touched with love for him. I would 
be fashioned by him ; but I dare not stand alone. 
If you can help me, if there is any safety among ^ 
you which in the world I do not know, for the love = 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 123 

of God receive me, and hold me up until I am able 
to sustain myself." 

There are men who come into this church who 
are a great deal worse, in many respects, than some 
others whom 1 would not vote to admit as mem- 
bers, simply because the first I believe to be Christ- 
ians, and the latter not. 

Suppose five brothers went West to farms, 
bought here ; when they got there, one found his 
farm to be a swamp ; another found his to be full 
of stumps and rocks, with a poor soil when he got 
at it ; another found his rather better, but still 
poor enough ; a fourth found his good land, but 
uncleared ; while the fifth had a farm on the rolling 
prairie, with a rich, dark soil that only needed seed 
to yield abundantly. 

At the end of a year, the man who owned the 
marsh has, by great efiTort and unremitting indus- 
try, got his land drained, manured, and a few acres 
of it under cultivation ; the second has progressed 
a little further, though with less labor ; the third, 
still further ; the fourth has, with one quarter the 
pains and expense of the first, got four times as 
much done ; while the fields of the fifth are laden 
with a rich harvest. He is making money the first 
year. One, judging from appearances of the merits 
of these farmers, might say the man who owns the 
fifth fixrni is the best farmer. I tell you, nav. He 



124 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

is the man for work and for courage who has 
struggled through the disadvantages of that first 
farm, and has made it hegin to bear fruit. 

There are some men who are born of a good 
stonk ; thej have well balanced minds, good 
natural dispositions, and are educated in the very 
hot-beds of piety. "When such are converted there 
can be but little change in their conduct. The 
springs and motives of life are touched, and what 
before was done as unto man, or from a mere sense 
of duty or propriety, now flows from love to God. 
Men look at such persons and say, "Well, they ought 
to go into the church ; they will be an honor to it." 
But when the poor, crooked, crabbed, ill-conditioned, 
ill-constructed sinner, who is so bad that it needs a 
whole conversion for every faculty in him ; who is 
possessed not only of seven devils, but of seven 
devils for every one of his powers, comes humbly 
saying, " The love of Christ has touched even 7ny 
heart — oh help me to grow into his image — • 
receive even me unt© his table," men say, f 
'■'Away with him. He'll be no credit to the 
church." 

Now when such a man really does get his own 
consent to be a Christian, and sets resolutely about 
it, he has to worJc for it. He does have " a work to 
do." It takes not one quarter of the religion to 
make perfect saints of men who by nature have 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 125 

almost everything done for them, that it does to 
render this other one even decent. 

Emphatically. ''The first sliall be last, and the 
last first." • 



There are men who dread religion, because they 
think it circumscribes them. 

Doubtless the life of a mere professor of religion 
is a life of circumscription ; but to one who has the 
love of God within him, there is freedom such as 
no other man can kiiovv 

What is there of pleasure or of joy, that is 
worthy of a man, that Zmay not have ? 

Is the air less free, the earth less beautiful to me, 
because I am a child of God, and can rejoice in my 
sonship to him who created all things ? 

Is love less to me, because I know and feel that 
it is to last forever? 

Are social pleasures less keenly relished, or 
friendship less valued by me, because I know that 
they will be eternal, and are to brighten forever 
beneath the smile of my God? 

I tell you there is no man that has half the right 
to the things that now are^ that he has who by faith 
and love has laid hold upon the things which are 
to come. To a Christian, earth is both substance and 
shadow. It is, in its better joys, a hint of the perfect 
joys to come. It is a glass into which one may 



126 LTvma words fkom Plymouth pulpit. 

look and see reflections of eternity. It is an atter 
impossibility to have any true and continuous satis- 
faction in life, unless you do feel that you have the 
love of the Giver of Life ; unless you love him. 
If that consciousness is yours, though you be shorn 
of all other joys, that will sustain you ; but the 
probability is, that all other joys will grow firm, 
founded upon that one ; for ours are not the days 
when religion arrayed all earthly power against men ! 



There are men who will not seek for religion 
when no one else is seeking, because they don't 
want to be thought singular — shame working 
through the organ of approbativeness — and then, 
when a revival comes, they won't seek it, because 
they don't want to get excited, and go with a crowd 
— shame working through self-esteem — and thus, 
between those two guards, warding them off from 
the door of salvation, the poor fools perish. 



Many a man, awakening to a sense of his wick- 
edness and trying to do better, finds himself so 
much worse that he cries out in terror of himself. 

If any of you who are unconverted doubt of 
your need of the help of Christ to curb your sins, 
just try for a few days to do it alone. They will 
give you work of it ! You'll say you never were 
so bad before. You never were so universally in 



1 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 127 

rebellion. While your will goes with your selfish 
or evil desires there is no conliict — or none that 
makes much stir and dust. I don't know as water 
would ever make any noise if it were allowed to 
flow unobstructed ; but put rocks in its way, let 
logs stick up in the current, dam it up, or in any 
way obstruct it, and then see — such a noise, such 
a commotion, such a determined overflowing as it 
makes ; and it will get out somewhere. So with 
yourselves — as long as your heart is let to flow un- 
disturbedly hellward, there may be but little trou- 
ble ; you may hardly be conscious that you are a 
rebel at all ; but lay on the bands, mark out the 
bounds, hold in the lines — and what then ? Why, 
then you will see how desperate is your case, and 
will soon discover that there is none but the Son of 
God that can help you. Then do not be afraid to 
go to him, because you fear you can't hold out; 
take the first step and he'll help you ; when you 
fail and fall he'll always forgive you ; if you are 
strong, and never give over trying to work with him 
against your besetting sins, he has promised,'^! 
will never leave thee nor forsake thee." 

Oh ! friends bound with me to the judgment, put 
not this matter aside. I feel that I could plead with 
you till the sun goes down, my heart is so in it. 
Talk not, I beseech you, as you go from here, of the 
speaker, the gestures, ortlie striking passages — talk 



128 LIVING WOEDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

of the passages that struck^ or go thinkiug silently 
of what is to come to every one of you. Let the 
sun go down, and when it is set we will pursue the 
subject, and may God direct his own word and 
truth to the salvation of souls. 



If there is joy in heaven over one sinner that re- 
pents, I don't know what the angels will do now 
that men everywhere are taking the kingdom of 
heaven by force.^ 

How marvellous is that part of the nature of God 
that permits him, while himself so pure and holy, 
to take tenderly to his bosom., and comfort with his 
love, creatures so full of sin as we are. Sinners un- 
regenerated are perplexed by the joy and courage 
of Christians who cannot but be conscious that they 
are yet very imperfect, sinful beings. They do not 
see how we dare to ti*ust in Christ while we yet do 
wrong. If we did no wrong we should have no fur- 
ther need of Christ. Believing on him is not in- 
stantaneous cure from sin; it is release from the 
curse and bondage of it, and surety that the cure is 
coming. Christians are like men with some disease 
upon them ; who have faith in the physician that 
has engaged to heal them, and they lend themselves 
with earnestness to the work of getting well. Ee- 

* March, 1858. 



LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMC^UTH PULPIT. 129 

lapses grieve them, but do not discourage. They 
rise up as often as they fall down. They groan and 
long to be delivered from the burden of death 
which is upon them, and they know that deliverance 
will come. 

Sinners, until awakened, don't know that they 
are burdened. They are like sick men with no 
shelter, no physician, no nurse, growing worse and 
worse forever. When they are awakened, their first 
thought and effort is to try to get worthy to come 
to Christ. Could they do that, which none ever 
can do, they would not need him. The point at which 
a man comes to see that he is utterly evil and help- 
less, and consequently turns to Christ as his only 
hope and help, is tliejpoint at which conversion taltcs 
place. On one side of this point a man is a sinner 
without hope ; on the other side he is a Christian. 
A sinner still, to be sure ; but with a certainty of 
healing, rescue, and salvation. 



Men take the world, filled, stuffed as it is with all 

good and beautiful things, very much as gipsies 

would take some glorious mansion, furnished with 

rare taste, and adorned with masterpieces of art. 

The chief room they would attempt to occupy 

would be the kitchen, and they would take the 

M-easures of manuscripts, in which wore written 
1' 2 



130 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

wonderful secrets of invention and science, and the 
solutions of great mysteries, to kindle the fire under 
their dinner pot. They would like the pictures, be- 
cause they had oil in them and would burn the 
faster. Thus blind to the higher uses of the things 
of the world are men. And it is the way of God 
never to stir one step from his path to show them 
better. He has given them the faculty to find out, 
and there he leaves them. In the physical economy 
of the world there is provision for all physical 
wants ; but they lie for the most part hidden. Not 
till the earth is scarified and rent, forced open and 
bored into, does she disclose or yield her treasures. 
Near acres of wheat, men may starve ; by the side 
of forests and beds of fuel, they may freeze. God 
will not move one inch, or one finger to save man, 
if he will not, with what he has already done for 
him, save himself. So in the spiritual world, pro- 
vision for all men is plenteously made ; but they 
will be allowed to perish unless they come and 
appropriate it. 

All things are to be had for the taking; nothing 
without. 

Let no man dare to think, " God, the gentle and 
merciful, will save me, whether I come to his terms 
or not." The whole analogy of life is against the 
thought. God will not save you, body or soul, 
except in appointed ways. It is turn or die. 



I 



LIVING WORDS FKOM TLYMOUTH PULPIT. 131 

Unutterably dreadful is the thought of eternal 
death. Eternal ! It is absolutely suffocating. I 
have felt my whole nature revolt against the horror 
of the conception ; and I would have disbelieved it 
if I could. But no ! it is true — it is an awful truth, 
and the mentions of it in the Bible are not so much 
threats as merciful disclosures of what lies at the 
end of the sinner's course, that he may be induced 
to flee for refuge to the hope set before nim. Even 
if the passages regarding hell could be made to 
mean something else it would not unsettle my faith 
in this doctrine. It would never be enough for me 
to take these passages of the eternal word, and, 
placing them in the rack, wrench and torture them 
until I made the poor words shriek forth some other 
meaning, unless I could see that the Lord, who is 
dominant over the natural as well as the spiritual 
world, turned aside in that for the sake of helping 
those who in natitral things will not " come " to 
what he has appointed for help and healing. 

The ages have rolled and rolled, and through 
them all the sound of the earth's irroanino: has i^one 
up to God, and he has never stirred. Man "inust 
avail himself of what has been done for him, or he 
must die. God has done all that he will ever do 
in the matter of providing means for salvation. 
The rest is left to man. 



132 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

No man has any business to try to be a Christian 
secretly. The light of love is not one for him to 
hide under a bushel. And, usually, a man's first 
duty after conversion, is to make the fact known 
to the very persons from whom he most wishes to 
keep it. 

I think no sufficient reason has ever yet been 
given for the great reserve felt by us toward those 
persons who are most dear to us. We shrink more 
from saying to our parents, wives, husbands and 
children, the things that lie deepest, than to any 
one else in the world. Why this should be so it is 
not easy to understand. 

I can very well understand how and why a man 
hates to say to his business partner, with whom he 
has long been engaged in cheating people — " I 
have become a Christian." I know that it must 
make him twinge, and feel jpaTticularly uncom- 
fortable to stand up and own this, and to have 
his partner say, " Ah ! well, how is it to be 
now about those profits that we have hitherto 
shared between us? Those extra profits — profits 
that we got in those ways^ you Icnoio. Am I to 
have them all now ?" 

I can imagine how a liquor-dealer would feel to 
own his conversion, and to hear, " Well, what are 
you going to do ? — going to join the church?" 
" Yes, if they'll have me." 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOCTH PULPIT. 133 

" Going to set up family prayer?" 
" Yes, I shall pray in my family." 
" Well, what else are you going to do ?" 
" Why, I shall try to do my duty." 
" Yes, hut about the liquor^ I mean." 
No doubt all this comes hard. But these things 
have got to be met and dealt with. If a man is 
noble he will say, " Not only will I put out my eye 
if it offends me, but I will put out both eyes ; for 
I have got two eyes opened in my soul that are 
worth more to see with than forty - bodily eyes." 



Sms against society — which is money — are felt to 
be very sinful, by those who have the money and 
who mean to keep it. Strike the side of a bee-hivo 
and see how the bees will swarm out, and buzz and 
buzz to defend themselves. Go on to Wall street 
or Broadway with any indulgences for financial 
sins, and there will be equal buzzing there. Crimes 
are owned to be sins indeed, because they touch 
the nnaterial interests of men, or hurt their affec- 
tions — their selfishness ; but when you pronounce 
men sinful in the higher, spiritual sense, they can- 
not feel anything about it. There are greater sins 

* *' Forty " and '* five hundred" are ^Ir. Beecher's favorite, and 
most frequently mentioned numbers, lie seen>a to have exempted 
them from his general dislike to figures. 



131 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

and smaller sins, it is true ; but all that is not of 
faith and love is sin. Jonathan as truly broke the 
law of his father the king, by tasting the honey on 
the end of his rod, as if he had slaughtered an ox 
and partaken of its flesh. As long as a man com- 
mits no crime he don't feel himself condemned, 
though his spiritual nature be dumb, dead, petrified. 



There are seasons peculiarly fitted for becoming 
a Christian. There are no feelings or sentiments 
of which the soul is capable but what have their 
tides. They ebb and flow like the sea. This seems 
to be one of the laws of our nature. 

There are times when the popular tide sets 
towards religion ; when all outward circumstances, 
as well as all inward yearnings, conspire to invite 
and even press the sinner towards God. 

Some persons object to revivals, saying, ''We 
don't believe in feeling and impulse. We think 
religion too serious a matter to be entered upon 
hastily. We think it requires calm consideration." 

Well, you man, twenty, thirty, forty years old, 
you with the grey hairs fast covering you, how 
much longer do you wish to consider ? Remember 
that Death sometimes strikes without much con- 
sideration. What if he strikes you? Where will 
your calm thoughts be then ? 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 135 

Truly, 'tis a wise piece of business for a man, 
hanging by no more than a single hair over the 
bottomless pit, to say to the friend who throws him 
a stout rope, " Wait, I must consider calmly of this 
— I don't believe in being in a hurry." There are 
some cases where consideration is crime — where de- 
liberation is death. Unutterable fools ! that think, 
and think, and 07ili/ think, upon the borders of 
perdition. The sands beneath their feet are crum- 
bling and shifting away ; but they must think, they 
say, when one calls to them to run. And so they 
pause, and perish. 

Feelings ought to be regarded ; sympathetic 
emotion is good for hearts. As much so in religioii 
as elsewhere. 

Resist not the spirit when your heart is tender 
and your thoughts turn in you, and lift themselves 
up towards God. 



What shall we do to be saved ? this is now 
the daily utterance of men's voices. Believe on 
Christ — drop instantly and forever all known sins — 
all meannesses, all dishonesties, all unkindnesses, 
at home and everywhere, all wrong thoughts and 
evil imaginations. You never can go in at " the 
strait gate," with any of tliese clinging to your 
will. 

Do you cry out, '' I cannot do this ; tlie work is 



136 LIVING WOKDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

too Lard for me — ^if I quit my sins they won't quit 
me. I cannot say to passion, avarice, selfishness, 
and pride, ' lie down and move no more ;' I camiot 
think right, and act right. I am not ahle to enter 
the gate if this is the way." K you think thus, 
how comes it that you have been putting off this 
matter of repentance to a sick-bed, or to old age ? 
If you cannot reform your thoughts and disposition 
noiv^ how can you then ? Tou say truly, you cannot 
reform them, and for this cause you need a Saviour. 
But you can remove them, and turn from them, and 
consecrate your whole body and soul to him, and 
he will reform you by aiding all your efforts. He 
will forgive as often as you break down, if you 
carry a steadfast purpose to conquer $elf^ for the 
sake of his love. He will not fail you, if you are 
sincere in seeking him ; but he will abhor your 
offering if you do not mean to make clean work 
with yourself by laying open your whole heart 
and life to his influence. 

Many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be 
able ; but not hecause of any trouble in the gate^ 
or in the Lord that stands at the head of the way, 
but because they try to carry in their barrels of 
spirit, or their selfishness, or their vile and evil 
dispositions and habits. Such can never enter. 
No rich man can go through that gate carrying 
with him his usury, or his exorbitant rents, wrung 



I 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 137 

from sweating and groaning tenants. IS'o unjust 
judge can go through with his oppressions. But 
there never was, and never will be, a naked, trem- 
bling soul, sincerely sorry for sin, and heartily de- 
sirous of escaping from its power, and to be made 
white in the blood of sprinkling, for which there is 
not ahundant room. And yet " Many shall seek 
to enter in and shall not be able." Many are the 
secret sins of heart and life whose clinging shall 
prevent the sinner. 

Ships, when the tide rises and sets strongly in 
any direction, sometimes turn and seem as if they 
would go out upon it. But they only head that 
way, and move from side to side, swaying and 
swinging without moving on at all. There seems 
to be nothing to hinder them from sailing and 
floating out to sea ; but there is something. 

Down under the water a great anchor lies buried 
in the mud. The ship cannot escape. The anchor 
holds her. And thus are men holclen, by the cords 
of their own sins. They go about trying to dis- 
cover some way to be forgiven, and j^et keep 
good friends with the devils that are in them. 
And this they call '' being serious." It is almost all 
self-will fighting against the Spirit of God. Now, 
let men bo honest with themselves, and if they 
think their sins, any or all of them, are better than 
the love of God and the salvation of tlieir souls, 



138 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

why stick to them, that is all ; and give up think- 
ing; but if they feel that the redemption of the soul 
is precious, and that it ceasath forever^ let them 
abandon all that hinders it, and begin at once to 
vrork with God for their own salvation. What 
they can do they must do, or be lost, and that is, 
stop all wrong doing that they can stop ; what they 
canH^ Christ will attend to. reforming their in- 
terior dispositions by the love which he will shed 
abroad in their souls. Turn ye, turn ye, for why 
will ye die ? Now is the accepted time — all things 
now are ready. The Lord has brought you nigh 
unto him, and on every side of you men are hasten- 
ing to make their peace with God. Beware how 
you let this opportunity pass. You may not have 
another. What would you say when some great 
steamer had run aground where there was but one 
tide in a year that would float her, if, upon the day 
before that tide came, her officers got together for 
a council, and decided that as there was but one 
tide a year, and they didn't believe in taking advan- 
tage of extraordinary times, that they should make 
no effort to get the ship off. When the tide rose, surg- 
ing and booming about the ship, if they had got up 
steam and set all sail, and worked her giant wheels, 
grating, groaning, and reluctant, she might have 
moved and struggled oft" into deep soundings. But 
they let tlie flood tide pass; and the water sank 



LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 139 

away from the ship's keel, and she cracked and 
parted asunder. 

Anon the beautiful and mighty ship was floating, 
but it was plank by plank, and spar by spar. 

What, I ask, would you think of those officers ? 

But what is a ship when compared to a human 
soul; which, being created, is to go step by step 
with God throughout eternity ; forever rising in 
purity and love, or forever sinking into the black- 
ness of darkness ? 

When you and I, my hearers, stand in the fore 
front of the judgment ranks to hear our doom, 
when all above us and around is the glory and the 
brightness of the Holy City, and all beneath us is 
the blackness of despair, you will not accuse me of 
exaggeration in saying to you that there are none 
so unwise, so blind, so miserably foolish and despe- 
rate, as those who, for any cause, do not first 
attend to the safety of their own souls. With all 
my power I warn you ; with all my strength I 
entreat you ; with all my skill I will aid you. Oh ! 
seek ye the Lord while he may be found. 



I OFTEN find, in talking with people, that they 
are in a state amounting to, or whicli ought to 
amount to, conversion. They see and feel their sin- 
fulness and need of Christ ; they are prepared to 



14:0 LIVING WOKDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

cut off limbs or pluck out eyes in his service. 
They tell me with tears, that they have moments 
of great affectional yearning towards him ; and yet 
they don't " go off." They are waiting to get 
something more, although they don't exactly know 
what, aboard. When I go and talk with them 
they seem all right ; but I leave them, and they 
stand still. I find them in the same spot day after 
day. ISTow, there's no use in my going to talk 
with such people. They must get themselves to 
work ; they must begin to do something, as well as 
feel so much. Let them enter upon the Christian 
life at once ; perform every known duty — stop 
every known sin. 

Here is a clock; the works are all right, the 
hands point to the right time, and 'tis all properly 
wound up. Everything is in prime order, and 
ready to go. But it donH go. What is the mat- 
ter ? Ton look at it an hour hence, and the hands 
have not stirred. Ton move them forward and 
leave it, and the next hour you have got to set 
them again. This sort of work you may keep at 
forever. As long as the pendulum is not moved 
the clock won't go. Let that begin to tick, and all 
is at once right and busy. Now, let those persons 
who are all wound up just begin to tick. Start 
your pendulum and the trouble is over. 



LIVING WORDS FROM: PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 141 

There are many persons, and I find them chiefly 
women, who do not experience any deep throes or 
trouble in entering the right way. 

Their conviction of sin is not such as catches 
them and plunges them headlong into agonies and 
horrors of great darkness ; but they look on Christ 
and love him, and at once accept him. They have 
a real^ but not particularly powerful knowledge 
that they are lost without him. They are con- 
scious that they are poor and sinful, very much as 
a little child is conscious that he is ignorant, and 
they go to Jesus for riches and righteousness very 
much as the child goes to school for learning. The 
child has faint ideas of how utter is his ignorance ; 
but after he begins to learn he sees it more and 
more. These penitents are but faintly aVare 
how deep is their sinfulness until they have begun 
to see as God sees, which is not for some time after 
he has blessed them with his adoption. Often the 
fact that there was so little struggle in their con- 
version has causeithem to doubt its genuineness ; 
and so they have got into great darkness ; but they 
must remember that God leads men to him in ways 
best suited to their own natures and dispositions, 
and while they who are naturally passionate and 
willful, who have more strength than tenderness in 
their dispositions, are often seized and rent like 
him out of whom went the furious devil, and are 



142 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

left wallowing upon tlie earth, before they will look 
to their Saviour, those who are of a gentle and lov- 
ing disposition, whose will has been trained to sub- 
mission, and who have lived chiefly in their higher 
nature all their days, will not, they ought not to, find 
it hard to come to Jesus Christ to put their arms 
about his neck, and tell him with gushing love, that 
they give themselves, body and soul, into his keeping. 
Blessed are they who can look upon the Saviour, 
and so instantly feel his goodness and beauty, and 
be so penetrated by his wonderful love, that with 
hardly a thought of self, they run to him and offer 
him themselves. This is the highest form of con- 
version. Conviction will be sure to be felt by such 
hearts as these every time the thought of what it is 
to grieve such a Saviour touches them. And the 
longer they live the worse will their own sins, and 
all sins, look to them. Let no one then, who has 
enough conviction to honestly desire to forsake sin, 
and to understand that in Christ lies all his help, 
wait for more or for a deeper feeling. If the wind is 
blowing two knots an hour, don't wait till it blows 
ten knots before you start your ship. If there's 
enough wind to start on, start — be off. If you want 
to come to Christ, come^ don't wait for anything 
If you can't feel as bad as you want to, don't stop 
on that account. When you've learned to love Grod 
you'll feel more than you can ever imagine now. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 143 

When serious persons ask me what to read, 1 am 
accustomed to saj : '' There is a little old book 
called Matthew's Gospel, which I think would suit 
your case. And there are three others which are 
just as good: Mark, Luke, and John." 

Don't go to the side helps of commentaries until 
after conversion. I think that commentaries for 
inquirers are like the spider webs of fifty years over 
windows, for sight. Tou must brush them all 
away before you can see clearly. jSTo book in the 
wide world has been so be-webbed as the Bible. 
Commentaries are very well for those who need 
helps in dates, or in sacred history ; but let the 
awakened sinner go straight to the fountain-head of 
truth — the Bible. And is the reading all? Oh! 
no, read ])Taying. And here again is where there 
are many and deplorable mistakes made. The 
inquirer, and the young convert, try to pray too 
long and not often enough. They try praying as 
they have always heard the deacon and the minis- 
ter pray, or as their father does ; and then they get 
into great distress because their '' thoughts wan- 
der." That is the lest thing about it. AVhen they 
attempt to do what for them is as impossible as for 
a lisping babe to converse like a philosopher, their 
thoughts loill and ought to wander. If this were 
otherwise, they would but the better play the hypo- 
crite before God by praying things for which tliey 



144 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

don't and can't feel the need, and in cold set forms 
01 chilling reverence. Now we have a model for 
the prayers of beginners, and 'tis this : " God be 
merciful to me a sinner." You can feel all of that ; 
you see it begins abruptly ; and it ends when the 
man is done. 

No " Oh! thou mighty, mysterious and everlast- 
ing Lord." No " Forever and ever, amen !" about 
ihat. 

Let it be a lesson to you, beginner. Pray what 
you feel, and not one word more. 

Read on; and if you are perplexed, and your 
thoughts look np, say : '' Lord, I can't understand 
this. I pray thee help me." Then stop, if you are 
done. 

Head on ; and if a scene, or an action, or saying, 
of your Saviour touches the fount of feeling, let that 
feeling out, saying freely : ''Dear Lord, I love thee, 
for thou truly art worthy !" 

And so on through his whole recorded life, and 
through your own life. Be instant in prayer. 
Warm, true, impulsive, and affectionate in commu- 
nion with yonr God. 

The utterances of real feeling only are acceptable 
to him. Forced prayer, or insincerity in prayer, is 
like foul odor in his nostrils. 

It is enough that he is willing to forgive us our 
sins, and to excuse the imperfections of our earnest 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 145 

prayers; let us spare him mockery added to 
Bin. 

If we can't feel like praying for everybody, and 
for everything, or like praying when we think we 
ought to pray, and if we are sorry that we feel so 
dull and prayerless, let us say that to God, and keep 
silence till we can feel more. God's heart is like 
our hearts — like a parent's heart. Our hearts are 
made by the pattern of his. 

How would a man like to have his own childreii 
observe only set times of coming to converse with 
him ? Qommgfrom a sense of duty at that ? How 
would he like to have them arrange all that they 
have to say in set and studied forms, very respect 
ful, perhaps, very laudatory, very humble and de- 
vout, but very heartless ? 

Think you that what would cut you to the heart, 
coming from your own offspring, does not at all 
hurt him whose tenderness is the ocean out of which 
your drop is drawn ? 

When I was in Paris, I used to rise early and sit 
at my open window. I always knew when the 
stores beneath me were open, for one was a flower 
store, and from its numberless roses, and heaps of 
mignonnettc, arose such sweet, sweet fragrance, 
that it proclaimed what was done. It seems to me 
that Christians should be as a flower store, and that 



146 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

the odor of sanctity should betray them wherever 
they are. ITot that they should -go about obtrud- 
ing themselves and their actions on others, with 
the cant of usefulness, but that they should live the 
purity and joy of religion, so that men might see 
the desirableness of it, both for the sake of noble- 
ness, and for the enjoyment both of this world and 
that which is to come. 



Conviction comes upon men in a thousand dif- 
ferent ways ; sometimes a little child climbs upon 
his father's knee, and says, looking up earnestly, 
"Pa, why don't you pray?" I tell you, there's 
many a man would rather a pistol were snapped in 
his face, than to hear that question from a little 
child. 



Do you say: "I want to be a Christian, but 
I'm waiting to be convicted of sin; it isn't right 
for me to do anything till I've felt myself to be a 
sinner " — then to you I am sent to say, you have 
no right to wait for anything. Begin, this instant, 
to love God, and to act like a Christian. 

"But I car^t^^ you say. 

Ah ! have you come to that knowledge already ? 
That is conviction of helplessness in the direction 
of goodness. Just go earnestly and perseveringly 



I 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 147 

to work to act right and to think right, and you'll 
get conviction enough. 

You may stand still and wait for it, looking into 
your own heart to see what you are, forever^ and 
not get it; but just try living right, by the rules 
Christ gives, and it will come upon you, so that you 
shall cry out, '' God be merciful, and liel'p me ; for 
there is no good thing in me." 

It's everybodj^'s duty to begin at once to live like 
a Christian ; and when they find how they fail of 
all they want to do, they will be convicted ; and 
when they give themselves utterly into the hands 
of Christ, they will be converted ; that is conver- 
sion, it won't be 'becoming perfect^ but it is \\i^ first 
step towards perfection. You must always keep 
trying to be good, just as hard as if you had all to 
do for yourself; but you must no more be discour- 
aged by failures than if you had nothing to do, for 
you have always^ night and day, an advocate with 
the Father — one who is righteous, though you are 
not — and who will never leave nor forsake those 
who trust in him. Therefore, come boldly to him, 
asking for grace to help in all times of need, and 
knowing^ that though you fall, you shall rise again. 



Some people seem to make a merit of great anx- 
iety for their friends ; now there is no merit, and 
no use, and there is positive harm in more anxiety 



148 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

for them than will excite you to do all that you 
can to influence them aright. When that is done, 
and you have committed them to God, then go 
away, and feel happy about them. 



We are a singing church, and when we are 
dead, and men come and scrape the moss from our 
graves, they will say : " These were Christians who 
sang much." 



Tou are planting seeds for the future as you sing 
these hymns. Were you to go away to Oregon 
next year, this book, out of which we have all sung 
together, would be a hundred books to you ; how 
it would make you remember these morning meet- 
ings, these lectures, these Sabbaths. 



While Brother was praying,^ the words, 

" Come up hither," cam6 to me. As I wondered 
what it meant, instantly it opened up to me in this 
way. 

Suppose that I had gone away from here for 
years, and came back to find my daughter living 
in some low, obscure place, bound out to hard labor 

* In Q. prayer-meeting. 



I 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 149 

for people who took no notice of her; or worse, 
noticed her only to abuse her. Suppose my son 
were in another place, half clothed, half fed, and 
suflfering all manner of ill treatment. And thus 
with all my children. 

What should I be likely to do ? Should I not at 
once set about lifting them out of such situations, 
and getting them up where I was, I should say to 
them, 

" Come up, my children ; you were not born to 
live down there. Your place is where I am. Come 
up. here to me ; here is where you belong." 

Well, this is what God is doing to men. He has 
a few, a very few children living in the high places 
of spiritual life — those regions of hope and love 
where he himself dwells. 

But most of his earthly family dwell far below, 
and he is constantly coming down to seek for 
them. 

He looks in the region of awe and reverence, in 
the region of conscience, in that of despondency 
and fear ; yes, he even goes down cellar after them, 
and sometimes can't find them even there. But 
wherever he does find them, he says to them : 

'' Come up hither — come up into the region of 
warmth and love, where your Father dwells. You 
were not made to live down there. This is where 
yon belong. Come up hither/' 



150 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

We must not settle down indolently to wait for 
God to make fruit grow in us. He never does 
anything for us in regard to character without our 
cooperation. Work out your own salvation with 
fear and trembling, not servile fear, or abject 
trembling, but with such eagerness as men often 
feel in an engrossing work they are so eager about 
that their nerves quiver a little. It is in doing 
our duties, and bearing our trials and vexations, 
that Christ is with us, and will dwell in us for our 
comfort ; but he will not dwell in us in any such 
way as that we shall have no more trouble and 
pain in struggling with our passions, our failings, 
our avarice, our pride, and all our besetting sins. 
It is by fighting and overcoming these that we get 
to be fruitful. " Work out your own salvation 
with fear and trembling, for it is God that worketh 
in you, both to will and to do of his own good plea- 
sure." These things God put together, and no man 
oaght to put them asunder. As you climb difficult 
hills your prospects will be brighter and clearer ; but 
not until you have gained the highest peak of expe- 
rience will you be able to see, from horizon to 
horizon, the presence with you of God ; and then 
you will soon begin to descend ; for it is generally 
not until near death that the Christian gets a view 
like this. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 151 

The great truth which God is driving through 
our times, as with a chariot of fire, is the import- 
ance of man ! When this truth comes up to the 
church, does she welcome it ? ISTo ! oh no — she 
cannot attend to new comers ; she is busy in the 
smoke-house of theology, dusting the flitches of old 
truth which have hung there for ages. 



A GRAND mistake of the old reasoners in their 
arguing for the goodness of God, was that they 
tried to prove that in the world there is more evi- 
dence of design for happiness than there is of 
design for pain. 

Now that position cannot be maintained. There 
is just as much evidence of a design to produce 
pain as to produce pleasure. 

For every adaptation for pleasure that you will 
show me I will undertake to show you one for pain. 
This life is clearly rudimentary. Men are here to 
be hammered into something of worth in the next 
state of existence. Pleasure is to be desired or 
expected but as incidental. Earth is not the pUice 
iov pleasure. It is the place where men are fash- 
ioned for eternity. A piano factory is not the place 
to go to in order to hear music. Suppose a man 
were to start for some great piano manufactory, 
with the expectation of being enchanted when 
, there by innumerable Thalbergs. • 



152 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

He goes along dreaming of the divine harino* 
nies which will greet him when he approaches the 
place where these sweet-toned instruments are 
made. 

He anticipates as much more of delight than 
Thalberg had given him, as there are more instru- 
ments in the factory than were on the boards of the 
concert hall. 

" I am going to the place where all those pianos 
are made," he says, as he hastens on. "They turn 
out hundreds of them in a day. Oh ! how will all 
sweet, bewildering sounds entrance my senses when 
I draw near. Hymns and songs of never-wearying 
melody will leap out at me from every door and 
window." 

He comes in sight of the building, and instead 
of hymns and choral melodies, he hears harsh 
noises. There are heavy poundings, gratings, saw- 
ings, and raspings. There are legs, uncouth and 
clumsy, to be worked into proper size and graceful- 
ness. There are strings to be tried, and separate 
parts to be fitted and knocked together ; there are 
great, heavy packing-boxes to be made, and vari- 
ous other awkward and noisy work to be done. 

Tools are thumping about ; cords and tackling 
rattling ; plenty of confounding noises, but no 
music. 

The man stands and sees the workmen- ply the 



ii 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 153 

hammer, and saw, and file, and punch, and chisel, 
and auger ; he sees dust, boards, and shavings fly- 
ing in all directions. Clatter and clatter surround 
him. 

From the windows come broken bits of board, 
wire, and iron; also all the different notes of 
racket and din ; but he hears no sweet melody. 

Then the man says in astonishment, ''Do they 
call this a piano manufactory — this confused 
place, full of all jangling noises? ISTo, no; this is 
no piano producing establishm.ent. This is only a 
dusty and noisy workshop." 

Yes, it is a workshop, where are being fashioned 
the instruments, which, when touched by skillful 
fingers, have power to enchant the world. 

But it is not the platform on which they are to 
he played. Not there are they to give forth their 
sweet harmonies. 

We are in the workshop of humanit3^ We see 
evidences of this, turn which way we will. 

Evidences are numerous of a design of poimding 
us. We must feel the mallet and the saw ; the 
punch and the bore. We must be split, and ground, 
and worked smooth. The pumice and the sand- 
paper are for us, also, as well as for the things we 
fashion ; and at last^ when we are all set together, 
polished, and attuned, we shall be played upon by 

the music-waking influences of heaven. 
G 2 



154 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Fighting faults is the most discouraging thing 
in the world. 

When corn reaches a certain height, no more 
weeds can grow among it. The corn overshadows 
and grows them down. Let men fill themselves 
full of good things. Let them make their love and 
purity and kindness to grow up like corn, that every 
evil and noxious thing within them may be over- 
shadowed and die. 



Men are not put into this world to be everlast- 
ingly fiddled on by the fingers of joy. 



Those persons who do most good are least con- 
scious of it. The man who has but a single virtue 
or charity is very much like the hen that has but 
one chicken. That solitary chicken calls forth an 
amount of clucking and scratching that a whole 
brood seldom causes. 



Sometimes, when mists conceal the bed of a river 
in which work is to be done, or which is to be 
forded, men are placed in the tops of trees along its 
banks, that they may look across, and sing out to 
those below, "Go on ; you are in the right way. 
We see the other shore, though you cannot. March 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 155 

on." Thus has God put look-outs in the trees along 
fehe banks of the Eiver of Death. 

Not many — many are not needed ; but in every 
Christian community there are some men who can 
see clear across the misty waters to the shores of 
heaven. God says to them, " Bear witness. Call 
cheerily out unto your brothers who cannot see for 
the fog through which they are walking. Tell them 
that all is right. Tell them not to flag or fear ; that 
they are in the right way, and that the shore is not 
hard to gain if, only, they p7'ess on.^^ 

One such man in the tree will do for the encour- 
agement of hundreds below in the river. 

There was but one Moses to the thousand of 
Israelites that entered the Jordan. 



Young Christian, do you want a prophecy of the 
future ? I'll tell you how to get it. In the first 
place, let the future alone^ then call to your heart, 
'^ Heart, art ready for each large or small duty of 
to-day ? If your heart answers, as bells do him who 
strikes them, if it cry lustily, and with no tarrying, 
'' Ready, aye, ready !" and if this is, day by day, 
its sincere cry, you have your prophecy. You will 
not be troubled about dying when you are dying. 

When Joseph sent for his father to come to 
Egypt, he sent men, and cliariots, and liorsemen, 



156 LIVING- WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

and provisions, all in profuse abundance. He 
didn't suppose that the old patriarch could journey 
with only his staff for company, finding himself by 
the way ; and do you think that when God sends 
for you he will provide less bounteously for the 
journey to his home ? ITo, no ; when your work is 
ended, when your royal day has come, you shall 
have cause to cry out, in rapturous praise. Sufficient ! 
sufficient ! sufficient ! is the escort which thou hast 
provided to bear me over to the Heavenly Land. 



If you really wish to know your faults, ask your 
enemies. What your friends will never tell you (in 
that not acting the true part of friend) your enemies 
will. When they aim an arrow, it will be at the 
place where there is a break in your harness. They 
can hit the sore place in you with unerring aim. 



Where Christianity is fruitful of speculations and 
barren of good conduct, infidels always abound. 



It is not death but life that we long for when we 
sigh to flee away and be at rest. 

When we think of the grave, of the chill and 
ghastliness of death, we cannot say that we are so 
willing to try it ; but when we leap the grave^ sink 



LIVING W0KD3 FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 157 

the very memory of it, and land safe over in 
teaven, then, indeed, are we ready, aye, longing 
to depart. 

How skillfully does Paul sail past the two 
unpleasing points, without touching too hard on 
either. ''It is not that we would be unclothed, but 
that we would be clothed upon.'' 

It is not desirable to be borne away alone, to lie 
and moulder in the cold, damp grave; but \iis 
desirable, soon as may be, to enter heaven. 



When you can make an oak out of a mushroom, 
then, and not till then, you may hope to make a 
living tree out of that poisonous toadstool, the the- 
atre. 

It was, even among the heathen nations, con- 
sidered a disgrace to be connected with one ; and 
down through all the thousands of years which it 
has lived since then, it has come with perpetual 
dishonor on its head. 



Men say we must be honest ; it is our duty. But 
they think there is no duty about being happy any 
more than about having fine weather. The weather 
is just as it happens, and so they suppose it is about 
happiness. But I tell you there is no more positive 
command in the Bible than this reiterated one, 



158 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

'^ Bejoice in the Lord alway ; and again I say ^ 
rejoiced And this rejoicing is not to be in plea- 
sure and profit, in good prospects, or in snnny days, 
bnt ^' in the Lord," a joy that shall be independent 
of circumstances — a joy that men shall be obliged 
to confess must come of religion. A Christian is 
indeed allowed to rejoice where other men can; but 
he is bound to rejoice where other men cannot. 

Who cannot rejoice when he holds his first-born 
to his breast? But, Christian, you are to rejoice 
when you bend, with falling tears, over his coffin. 
Weep ! it is your right ; but '^ rejoice in God." 

Who cannot rejoice when he walks with his 
bride smiling beside him? But 2/6>r^ are to rejoice 
when she lies stifi*ened in death on her bier. 

Do you say it is impossible for you thus, at will, 
to banish sorrow, and recall joy ? 

It is not impossible. You cannot do it as you 
can will your eye to open or shut ; but you can do 
it by controlling the causes of things. 

You can live in such abiding consciousness of 
eternity, that time and the things thereof shall be 
to you but as pictures hung up in a hall, which may 
all be taken away without touching you. 

When losses come upon you, you may and ought 
to sorrow for pain of present bereavement, but you 
should rejoice with a joy which no man may take 
from you, in the promise that all of yours which is 



J 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 159 

worth having will be restored to you, where it will 
be clearer and better than ever. 

Live so that your peace and joy shall be the 
'' lio-ht " that shall shine on men, showino; them the 
power of religion thus^ rather than by seriousness 
and gloom of face and temper. 



Tou are not to follow after happiness as an end 
of life. So sure as you do this, you will Qiever be 
happy. But be happy while you work with God. 
Ye are the temples of God. Be cheerful while 
you help your Master Builder to perfect his tem- 
ple. 

Under all discouragements, bear up cheerfully, 
remembering that it is by trouble that God puts 
temper into the steel. If it will not bear tempering, 
it is not worth much. He has promised, once for 
all, '' I will nevei' leave thee, nor forsake thee ;" and 
has declared, '' There hath not entered into thy 
heart the joys that are laid up for them that love 
me." What need we more ? 

What feeble and ungrateful wretches we are, not 
to be able to rejoice always, when we have such 
joys before us. 

Much harm has been done by the idea that a 
I certain gloom, and a restriction of the lively emo- 
j tions, bear some relations to piety. 



160 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

These bear the same relation to it that rust does 
to the sword-blade — they eat into it. 

The command, '' Be sober," does not mean be 
unmirthful. 



I WOULD rather break stone on the road, were it 
not for the disgrace of working in a chain-gang, 
than to be one of those beings who are so rich that 
they have nothing to do but to '^ seek happiness," 
as they call it. 

The " upper class," as they style themselves, are 
\h^ flies of humanity \ and if there could be some 
great fan invented to sweep them all out of the 
way, it would be a benefit to the world. 

The working of such a fan would be a very good 
business for somebody. 

And yet these beings presume to make society's 
laws. I must repeat, as the only true description 
of them that I know in the English language 
Pope's lines — " If the gods be monkeys, what must 
the people be ?" 



What does Paul mean in saying, " I am perse- 
cuted, but not forsaken ?" It's a very pleasant 
thing, sometimes^ to be persecuted — it's delicious ! 
When a man has his own house, and his family 
around him, as much salary as he can spend, and 
more friends than he knows what to do with, it is a 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 161 

pleasant excitement, when breakfast is over, to open 
the papers and look to see how he is '^ persecuted;" 
but this was not the way with Paul. He was 
driven out, and hunted up and down ; he had 
neither father, mother, wife, sister, brother, nor 
constant companion, save his dark-browed jailer — 
yet he did not feel forsaken. He was troubled on 
every side, yet not distressed. 

As a mailed warrior might stand amid flying 
darts from Indian bows, feeling them hurtling and 
rattling against helmet and corselet, and shield, and 
falling about him like hail, until they were piled a 
thousand high, and yet smile, saying : ''They hit 
me indeed ; I am pelted and shot at of the archers, 
but I am not huTt^ So stood Paul in his armor of 
proof. 

A man in the lists fights first with lance and 
spear ; then, dropping these, he seeks in the closer 
contest, with the shorter dagger, to stab and kill. 
Then flinging this away closes in the deadlier grap- 
ple. Then the two sway and bend, and topple to 
their fall, each struggling to overthrow his enemy, 
knowing well that who goes down is the dead 
inan. 

They reel, they stumble, they fall, and at tlie 
overthrow one feels the knee of the conqueror on 
his breast, and sees the deadly steel shortened 
above his heart. Thus was it with Paul — yet there, 



162 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

lying prostrate in the dust, dying by cruel hands, 
he uttered his voice, and its triumphant joy comes 
ringing down the path of ages, to teach us how, in 
the loss of all things, to rejoice in God. 

Ah ! look not in the throne for strength. 

The prisoner in the dungeon was mightier than 
the king. He that was under the throne was 
stronger than he that sat upon it. 



We are not to seek pain ; but when it is sent to us 
we are not to fret and grumble at it, but try and go 
cheerfully along, as though we did not feel it. It is 
for our good, our purification — ^for nothing is so 
purifying as pain, if it be rightly borne. 



Suppose I could have these faces gathered and 
brought to me, and could hold them thus, and 
should ask: ''Whose image and superscription is 
stamped on this face ?" 

" Care marked this face," would be the (fre- 
quent) ansv/er. 

" Who marked this one ?" 

" Fretfulness/' 

''And this?" 

"Selfishness." 

"This?" 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 163 

" Suffering stamped this." 

" What this ?" 

"Lust! lust!^' 

"And this?" 

"Self-will." 

" And who stamped this face ?" I should ask of 
one — a rare and sweet one. 

" This ! why where did jou get it ? Whose face 
is this ? — how beautiful ! It is marked by the sweet 
peace of a contented spirit." I never saw more 
than a dozen of these in my life. 



The change from a burning desert, treeless, 
springless, and drear, to green fields and blooming 
orchards in June, is slight in comparison to that 
from the desert of this world's affection to the 
garden of God, where there is perpetual tropical 
luxuriance of blessed love. 



I HAVE heard people say, " What a fortunate cir- 
cumstance it was that that trouble came to-day, 
just as I was so well prepared to meet it. I really 
don't think I could have borne it if it had come at 
some other time." Very true ; you could not. 
God knew that, and he did not send it upon you 
until he had prepared you to bear it. It was fortu- 
nate for you that he thus cared for you ; yet you 



164: LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

speak as if its coining just at that time were all 
accidental. 

H-h-h-h-m ! what a fortunate thing it was for the 
tree that there hajpjpened to be a blossom just where 
the fruit wanted to grow; and what a fortunate 
thing it was that a bud happened to grow just 
where the blossom wanted to open. 

It is a fortunate thing for mj head that I've got 
a neck ; and it is a very fine thing for my neck that 
I've got shoulders, and trunk and limbs under it ; 
and a fine thing for all these that I've got feet to 
move them all about upon. I don't know what I 
should have done if things had not happened to 
come just as they did. 

These things do not come one whit more along 
the line of sequences than did your strength made 
equal to your day. 

That was God's promise fulfilled and you refused 
to see it. Your privilege is to be troubled about 
nothing. " Work well to-day ; there all your duty 
lies." 

Don't imagine trouble ; don't borrow it ; don't 
die before your time. When God wants you to 
die he will show you how to do it easy. 



You come to church to be told how to be the 
saint ; you go out into the world to ie it. 



LITING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 165 

There is a question in the air that no set of men, 
be they of what sect they may, can steer quite 
clear of in their talk. 

This question is sizzling everywhere. Hush it 
up, cover it down, as you please, it will keep burst- 
ing out. 'Tis bubbling up on all sides of you. 
You viust agitate it. 

God is in this thing, doing what I have all along 
prayed that he would do, viz., working in a way that 
will make all parties feel that the thing is not of man. 
He has overturned the plans both of agitators 
and of quietists ; but still he is putting on the 
spurs. He is forcing men to agitate the matter ; 
and until they do it, he will agitate them. 

Order and quiet are good things, when they can 
be had without the sacrifice of things that are bet- 
ter. But who says, when he looks upon the splen- 
did marble buildings that adorn our cities, that all 
the noise, dust, and rubbish which obstructed the 
sidewalks, while those buildings were rising, had 
better not have been made, even though the price 
of unbroken neatness and order had been the per- 
petual continuance of the old, rat-riddled shanties, 
which were once where those palaces now stand? 



New England is the right arm of the States, 
and Boston is the hand of that arm. 

That arm is now outstretched, and that mighty 



166 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

hand is clenclied to give a death-blow to slavery. 
I never felt so willing to drop my oars as now. 

Who would row when he conld go ly sailing? 

Here is a letter from a southern slaveholder, a 
woman, who has written to me, me! for advice as 
to how to get rid of the slaves in a way which shall 
make them free, and not utterly impoverish her- 
self. 

When southern slaveholders write to me on such 
a subject as this, then I say it is not hard for us to 
believe that the millennium is drawing nigh. 



To have God and the things of eternity con- 
sciously always in mind is impossible. 

There is no provision, either in nature or grace, 
for such a state of things. 

But to have him in our hearts, as the governing 
power of our lives, and to carry our love for him, 
consciously and unconsciously, as a mother carries 
the love of her first-born child, is what is our privi- 
lege and our duty to do, and our only safety. The 
mother thinks of ten thousand things which, for the 
time, must crowd her babe out of her mind ; but 
never does she get free of the influence that her 
love for him has over her. We must make these 
natural loves our teachers of how we are to be 
filled with the love of God. We may go up by 



LIVING- WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PCLPIT. 167 

them till we are far, far above them in regard to 
what we feel for him, who has all loves in himself ; 
but we never need to attempt impossibilities, for 
he will have no such worship. Remember grace is 
only nature llossomed out j it is no new thing 
grafted in upon nature, but nature won and warmed 
into its true growth ; that for which the God of 
nature made it. A Christian is one brought back to 
true growing. Educate your children aright, inure 
them to hardness. Make them to be like the wil- 
low tree, that when broken from the parent stem, 
they may immediately root themselves wherever 
they strike ground, and bravely flourish on their 
own responsibility, instead of being forever graft- 
ing themselves on your old trunk and limbs. 
Don't make women of your sons ; for thus would 
they have all woman's weakness, without her regal 
excellence. 

A woman made of a woman is God's noblest 
work ; but a woman made of a man is his meanest 
one. 



There is no religion in the Bible — I liope if 
there are any reporters here, that they will wait 
until I finish my sentence before they run to the 

paper — any more than there is a road upon 

the guide-board. The Bible is the rule, the direc 
tion, by which man is to work out his own salva- 



168 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

tion, as the guide-board is the direction by which 
he is to walk out his journey. Religion is in the 
man^ or it is not anywhere. 



Religion should not be used as calking, some- 
thing to stuff into the cracks and crevices of a 
man's life ; but it should be regarded and used as 
the very warp and woof of life. 



When all goes smoothly, men imagine them- 
selves fully equal to driving their own team ; but 
when their affairs begin to run away with them, 
they cry out quick enough, '' Where's God ? 
Where's God ?" 



It ought to grow more and more easy to Christ- 
ians to do right, until at last the acts that were 
sore self-denial become a pleasure. 

When this has come to pass do not be frightened, 
and begin to doubt your piety. Be glad and 
grateful, for your graces are growing ripe. 

What was once sour and bitter has become 
sweet and agreeable. 

When you first entered the Christian path, you 
found it hard to do those things as conscience com- 
manded, and you were often tempted to cry out : 



LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 169 

^' Thy paths are not the paths of peace, O 
God !" 

YoLi were as children who, hearing their father 
discourse of the rare and luscious apples that his 
orchard yielded, straightway ran thither, expecting, 
though it was in the early summer, to be able to 
judge of the flavor of the fruit. Eiting into it, they 
cry with wry features, spitting and casting the 
apples to the ground. '' Is this the perfumed, 
saccharine flavor our father talks of ? We want no 
more of it." 

The miser, when converted, finds that he must 
be a miser no more. He sees, perhaps, that duty 
requires him to give fifty dollars to a poor man. 
He wishes that twenty-five would do ; but it won^t 
do. He knows that. He puts his hand into his 
pocket and — considers. He tries to go away with- 
out giving the sum. 

" Do it — do it," growls conscience from within. 

The man casts down the money hastily, and runs 
away. 

That was a victory, but a hard and painful one ; 
and the miser finds himself put through years of 
just such discipline, until at last he is a miser no 
more. 

Giving has become a blessing and a pleaswe to 

his heart. Shall he now say, dolefully ? ^' I fear 

I am not a true Christian. 1 cannot see tliat I 

H 



170 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT, 

carry any cross, or deny myself any, as once I 
did. Why, I remember when it was like cruci- 
fixion to give away five dollars. But I overcame 
nature and gave it, and then I had sure evidence 
that the root of the matter was in me. But now — 
oh ! I'm so much at ease now, something must cer- 
tainly be wrong ; nothing seems to try me." 

Why, man, your graces are growing fully ripe ; 
or take another figure. 

It is a great trick among the boys to ferule each 
other in order to harden their palms preparatory 
to blows thereon from the teacher. 

It's a good thing sometimes to have the palms 
hardened. Yours have been hardened so that giv- 
ing does not hurt them now. 



There are localities where the gnats, flies, and 
mosquitoes are so thick that a man cannot see for 
them. They swarm about his head and eyes in 
such blinding numbers that it is utterly in vain to 
try to seek for anything upon the ground. 

Thus, I think, it is with the Bible. It has 
been so beswarmed by commentators that it is 
next to impossible to think of a text without 
instantly hearing the buzz, buzz, buzz, of five hun- 
dred constructions and explanations, each one of 
which is further from being any help than the 
others are. 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 171 

Our real commentators are our strongest traits 
of character ; and usually, we come out of the 
Bible with such of its texts sticking to us as our 
idiosyncrasies attract. 

The texts we least need are the ones we like best, 
and remember longest. A kind-hearted, lazy man 
will remember '' Blessed are the merciful," long 
after he has forgotten the injunction to be '' di- 
ligent in business." 

Health underlies all there is of a man. I think 
a man ill-bodied cannot think healthily. It would 
surprise people to see how many things which have 
shaken the world with controversy, and burdened 
it with error, had their origin in indigestion. It is 
humbling, but it is true, that the action of the mind 
depends upon the state of the sinews and the 
blood. To be sure, there have been cases in which 
from a diseased body the mind has shone out 
strong and good, triumphant over fleshly ill ; but 
these are not the rule. ITo man would think of 
going into battle with a handful of unarmed men, 
because such have won victories ; or of going to 
sea in an unrigged ship because dismasted and 
dismantled vessels have come safely into port. 
Health is a duty. If a man would carry his mind 
aright, and have it work with power^ let him seek 
to be heahhy. 



172 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Christians all want to have graces, but they are 
not so willing to take what is necessary in order to 
obtain them. The pale think it a fine thing to be 
painted — all the lovely flowers and gay colors so 
skillfully laid on by the cunning hand of the artist; 
but when it comes to being daubed all over with 
some dark substance, when the very gold that is 
upon them becomes as black as ink ; when they are 
thrust into the heated furnace, how then ? how then ? 

Christians are like vases, they must pass through 
the fire ere they can shine. And often the very 
furnace and the flame which they call destruction, 
is only burning in the graces which are to be their 
everlasting beauty and glory. 



Not so much is it onuch working as it is easy 
working, which tells. If a man only knows how 
to use himself, if he use all his faculties in due 
measure, he will scarce ever tire. Most men use 
but very few of their -faculties. They are like a 
man who owns a tower in which are thirty bells ; 
but he never attends to them. By and by there 
comes a day on which he would rejoice, and he 
goes to ring his bells. He draws this rojoe and 
that, but there is no response, or only a jingle now 
and then, from some cracked and rusty bell. 

At last, from one great, hoarse throat, at the 



I 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 173 

top of the tower, comes crashing out a heavy 
sound. 

That bell is the only one of the whole thirty that 
will ring. 

Or, men are like houses, hiiilt very high, but 
which the owner had no means oi furnishing higher 
than the first story — and there he lives, his upper 
chambers all going to rack and ruin. Or they are 
like ships well freighted and furnished, when they 
started out from port, but which, when they near 
their other harbor, have nothing left of them but 
their hull. They have made fuel of everything 
within themselves. They are self-consumed. 



A man's worth should be reckoned by what he 
is, not by what he has. 



A WISE man is one that knows how to turn to 
good account the knowledge which he has. He is 
not wise who has mastered all languages, all sci- 
ences, if he lacks the ability to xise this knowledge. 
lie is only stuffed. 



The man who tries to cut himself and square his 
conduct merely by the outward pattern of morality, 
is as tlie artist wlio, instead of studying liis art from 



174: LIVING WOEDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

the boundless and glorious pictures God has painted 
on the earth and in the sky, goes into some dim 
gallery, and pores over what hangs there until he 
can badly imitate the stiff drapery, uncouth figures, 
inhuman adults, and monstrous pumpkin-headed 
children, that the canvas before him exhibits. Ha ! 
you love to laugh at the artists ; but what do you 
think the angels do at you^ who prostitute not 
merely your fingers and imaginations, but your 
whole spiritual nature, to the work of making, not 
bad pictures, but bad, incomplete, poverty-stricken 
men. "Is not morality good, as far as it goes?" 
say you. " Yes, certainly, as far as it goesP 
" Isn't my cable as good as yours, as far as it goes ?'' 
says the sailor who has a short cable to him who 
has one very long. ''Yes," says the other, " as far 
as it goes ; but what of that, when it won't go within 
fifty fathoms of bottom." And of what use, oh, 
moralist, is your cable, when it will not go within 
fifty fathoms of the place where it can take hold 
upon the soul's anchorage ? 



I don't blame a man for not understanding the 
mysteries of God any more than I should blame one 
who was standing in the Atlantic Ocean for saying, 
" I can't." 

'' Can't what r' 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 175 

" I cannot.'^^ 

" Not T\4iat ?" 

" I've been in ankle deep, and knee deep, and 
thigh deep ; I've been in all over, and it's no use ; I 
never can wade across the Atlantic Ocean." 

'' Of course you can't — nobody told you to. 
What did you try for ? God never meant to have 
you do it, or he would have made it more shal- 
low." 

Just in this way do men act in regard to doc- 
trines. They go out a little way on election, and 
back they come, shaking their heads, and saying, 
" It's very mysterious ; I can't understand it." 
Then they try free agency, then decrees, etc., but 
they have no better success with them. Well, 
what of it ? Man, by all his searching, cannot find 
out God. I am not ashamed to say that I do not 
understand his mysteries. I believe that what he 
says is true, if I cannot reconcile it. My own con- 
sciousness agrees with the most seemingly contra- 
dictory passages concerning free will and sover- 
eignty. I know that I am free, that by my own 
choice I perform moral acts. That with me lies the 
power of sinmng or refraining from sin, and yet 
when I go forth with my most buoyant sense of 
freedom to think and act, I am conscious ot* influ- 
ences, of barriers which say, '' Thus far, and no 
further." 



176 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

I feel in my very nature that I am free, and yet 
that I do not direct my own steps, nor appoint my 
own bounds. I cannot reconcile this. I know it ; 
and there it must rest. 

God does us no violence. He uses us through 
the very nature which he gave to us, and through 
our free will. 

The mulberry leaves are stripped from the tree, 
and the food which they make for the worm acts 
upon it according to its own nature. As their na- 
ture dictates, the worms spin their cocoons and 
sleep in them. 

Then, when the little spinners have been de- 
spoiled, the loom is made and the silk is woven and 
stamped by the skill of man. Everything has been 
used according to its nature in the construction of 
the silk. 

And the web which God is weaving, and the 
pattern with which he will mark it, will all be 
done in the same way. 

The whole plan is in his mind now, and it will 
result as he intends, but only through the free 
action of the nature he has given to man. His 
plan embraced this idea from the very beginning 
of things, and every contingency is provided for in 
the eternal mind. 



A man is better than a peer, a prince, or a king. 



LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 177 

Some ministers are forever hammering out doc- 
trines, making ploughs with which they do no 
work after they are made. 

Now /make ploughs ; but when I have finished 
them, I don't lay them away to be taken out and 
re-beaten the next year. 

No ; my business is to put handles in my plough, 
and then to fasten to it a team strong as eternity, 
and then to force it deep, deep into the soil, and 
rip, rip, rip, ousting the vermin, scattering the 
moles and nibbling mice, and making broad fur- 
rows, in which I may sow seed. 

Doctrinal furrows are good for nothing unless 
they are planted, and doctrines should not be 
preached so high that they are above the head of 
everybody who walks on the ground. 



It is by trouble that God puts temper into the 
heart. 



Each living man bears a relation to his whole 

race. His having lived will never cease to be felt 

throughout the universe. No man can live unto 

himself. We own each other, and God owns us all. 

A man never stands alone unrelated to anything; 

but his closest relation is always to his Creator. 

A willow tree may stand far from the banks of 
W 2 



178 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

the stream, and with, no apparent support, except 
from the ground about its trunk. But what are its 
roots doing? Down burrowing amid the rocks — 
forcing a way through the earth, seeking for open- 
ings — pushing whithersoever is the smell of moist 
soil — diving to the level of the cool well, and drink- 
ing deep of its nourishing waters, shooting out by 
the brookside, many, many rods away, till its banks 
are fringed like a shawl, seeking everywhere for 
the nutriment which gives life to the tree above 
them, is what the roots are doing ; and man is like 
a tree, only his roots shoot upward as well as down- 
ward, and his firmest tie is to the heart of God, as his 
surest and best supply is from thence. 

Who then can say, "I am mine own; I stand 
alone uninfluenced and un influencing." 



There is little hope of ever uniting men on doc- 
trines or ordinances. 

I think I can see in the K"ew Testament authority 
for Episcopacy, for Presbyterianism, and for Con- 
gregationalism. To me it seems, therefore, that 
the Apostle's idea was that the churches should be 
governed according to their necessities, taking one 
form, or another, as was best suited to them. 

The only ground on which all Christians can 
have perfect union is the ground of love. 



LIVING- WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 179 

Why, a little while ago they gathered themselves 
together from the four corners of the earth to form 
one great Christian union ; and the very first thing 
they did after they were assembled, was to disfran- 
chise the whole band of Quakers — among whom 
God has his saints and angels, if he has any on 
earth. May they not have been permitted to pre- 
sent to the world this absurd spectacle for the pur- 
pose of showing the impossibility of Christians 
uniting on mere grounds of opinion. Love is 
the only fusing power in the universe — all may 
meet there. 

Three naturalists once went into the woods to 
find a nightingale's nest. When they had found it, 
each took from his pocket his favorite work on or- 
nithology and began to describe the looks and the 
size of the nio-htino^ale that was not there. * All 
gave a difi*erent description, and they quarrelled 
over the empty nest, and tore each other's books, 
and made a great noise. But now from the thicket 
where she had been resting, the bird began to pour 
a flood of song. The disputers stopped to listen. 
The very leaves quiver in tlie gush of melody 
— the waves of air are moved — the forest is bathed 
in music as in a flood. When a hush falls around 
them — for the song is done, tho men straightway 
shut their books and go home. 

Men read about God, and his character, and 



180 LIVING W0KD8 :FR0M PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

they try to think about it, and undertake to de- 
scribe it, and finally they get to quarrelling about 
what none of them at all understand. But some- 
times when the truth shines out clearly on them, 
they foi^get all their supposed wisdom, and in silence 
go their ways to love and to adore. 



Suppose that I knew a body of men conspicuous 
for their faith, hope, love, gentleness, generosity, 
etc., but before I gave them my confidence I 
wanted to dig down a little deeper than practical 
life, and I said, " My dear sirs, what are your ideas 
concerning the Trinity ?" 

"Well," they reply, ''we don't know much 
about that. In fact, we have no theory in regard, 
to it." 

I then question them in regard to the " per- 
severance of saints." 

" We have all been so busy trying to persevere 
that we haven't had time to study upon the doc- 
trine," is the answer. And so on to the end of the 
doctrines. 

Then, in order to be orthodox, I should have to 
shake my head at them and say : 

"Tou 7nay escape into heaven, so as by fire; but 
I don't know, I don't know — I will pray for you." 

" Sound doctrine," says Orthodoxy, " is the found- 



LIVING WORDS FPwOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 181 

ation of religion." No such thing — Jesns Christ 
is the foundation of religion. Doctrine is the most 
delusive goblin that ever existed, when it is in the 
hands of certain men. They frame a form for 
Truth, and when she has outgrown and forsaken 
that form they stuff it with doctrine and bid men 
cling to the old shell and let the living spirit escape 
them. 



I THINK that it is the sense of right and wrong 
that marks the line between man and the brutes. 
I'm sure I've seen some dogs that had more 
sense of right and wrong than some men have ; 
and I think when you get down so low that this 
sense is wanting, you have come to beings that are 
neither human nor accountable, be their form what 
it may. But at least it is dark and twilight explor- 
ing in this direction. 



The ministry is inclined to think that a truth has 
no chance at all with refined and educated men, 
unless it have a refined dress. Now, although it is 
t»ue that such men do look for what shall accord 
with their delicate and elevated tastes, and although 
even the truth of God is better if presented in chaste 
and elegant language, tliere are always, in every 
man's heart, great cords underlying all these 



182 Livma words from Plymouth pulpit. 

lighter desires, which will answer instantly and 
powerfully to the touches oi feeling — even though 
it be rudely expressed. When a man overflows, 
and in his efforts to express himself knocks his lan- 
guage in all directions, his honest, earnest, outright, 
downright feeling is the power which moves. It 
would be mightier were it well expressed, but the 
feeling is the thing after all ; and when a man holds 
back feeling nntil it chokes in the sand, that he 
may present a correct and refined discourse, he 
letrays Christ to rhetoric. 

When Paul said he was determined to know 
nothing but Christ and him crucified, he was upon 
this same theme. He was telling the people that 
he was not going to tickle their ears with fine, 
smooth periods. He said : '^ My power upon you 
shall not be in my refined and elegant language, in 
my persuasive eloquence. It will not be in me at 
all^ but in my moving subject, Christ and him cru- 
cified. He was going to throw over them no lasso 
of ensnaring art; he would declare to them the 
plain truth in words that all could understand and 
feel. Paul meant no such thing as ministers mean 
now-a-days, when they make this declaration. He 
did not mean by it that he should shun all touchmg 
upon the things on which duty called him to speak 
out boldly, that he should meddle with nothing 
that could offend the sinning public, but talk per. 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 183 

petually of Christ and him crucified, without mak- 
ing this his lever to heave from their foundations 
the evils of the world. Such talk is nonsense, in 
the pulpit or out of it — consummate nonsense. 



Sometimes we feel as if it were true that this 
world had broken forth from the womb of chance 
and were swinging in her dismal orbit, groaning, 
aifrighted and running away. 



Were one to ask me in which direction I think 
man strongest, I should say, in his capacity to hate. 



I THINK that Scripture passages are like wayside 
flowers. We have seen them all our lives, and 
therefore do not kcrow or feel their beauty ; or they 
are like the beautiful creations of art that are in old 
cathedrals, covered by the dirt and moss of ages. 
Men go by th^m and do not know that they have 
passed forms that gave expression to the thoughts 
of ancient masters. No man cares for them, or 
cleans them, until by and by some enthusiastic 
Ruskin comes along and docs it, and then 'tis seen 
that the things which all their life long they havo 
thought homely, are beautiful beyond description. 

What an idea of God's prodigality must have 



184: LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

been in Paul's mind when he thus struggled to 
express himself : " unto him who is able to do for 
you exceeding abundantly more than ye can ask or 
think." And this was his view of his master's 
character when he was in prison, and when, appa- 
rently, affairs with the church were desperate. 
This view he held up in the sky for Christians to 
steer by. Such abundance belonged to God, and 
God was theirs. Abundance is a relative word. 
A shepherd would not consider that abundance for 
him which might be so for a wayfarer. What 
would be abundance for a nomad would not do 
for the supply of the settled farmer, and the farm- 
er's abundance would be a scant portion for the 
merchant. A ]3etty prince of a German province 
would require far more than the abundance of the 
merchant to support his state, yet what would make 
his coronet resplendent would be but a trifle in that 
of the Russian czar. When from these we look up 
to heaven, and try to imagine what that can be 
which Infinity names abundance — " more than ye 
can ask or think " — we are bewildered, and give 
up in despair. In the hours when the spirit 
wafts our souls upward as the wind sometimes lifts 
a bird, aiding its flight, we wish, and think, and 
ask such things, as afterwards we wonder how we 
dared to mention ; we cannot believe ourselves that 
we ever soared so high as we yet are conscious 



HYING WORDS FFwOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 185 

of having done. When the heart yearns for our- 
selves, or for others, we ask such blessings as we 
ahnost fear are presumptuous. But even a mother's 
heart, deep as the eternal wells, when in her closet 
she kneels amid the sound of groans, and the plash- 
ing of falling tears, to pray for her wandering child ; 
even the prayers of martyrs, in their utmost agony, 
when their words swept like the Amazon, and were 
yet but bubbles on the sea of feeling that was 
beneath, were shallow and poverty-struck compared 
to what he will give to each one who loves him. 
Why, look at the beginning ; when a child is sent 
to earth, what preparation of soft quilted fabric, of 
all delicate and curiously- wrought garments, scented 
with sweetest perfumes, is made for the little pil- 
grim of love ! But what is all this to the expense 
and lavish outfit of earth, the cradle of man's 
infancy ? See how its furniture is wrought. One 
fragrant bank, could he, in his whole lifetime, pro- 
duce such a one, would render an artist immortal. 

God has quilted the earth with beauty, and 
combed the hair of ten million flowers nnd reeds 
over its verdant banks. No emperor's child was 
ever rocked in such a cradle. 

Does the mother lavish less love upon her child 
as it grows in stature and capacity? And shall God 
do less lovingly than those whose licarts lie made 
and filled with love from his own heart? 



186 LIVING WOEDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Some men think of God as of one sitting like a 
tliunderstorm in the sky. They know that there is 
no safety but in going to him, but they apprehend 
a great deal of danger even in that. 

They approach him under an umbrella of excuses, 
and have, here and there, a covert under which to 
dodge, if they think a bolt is coming. They forget 
who Christ meant by the ''Father " of the prodigal 
Son ; and they lose all the encouragement that he 
meant for repentant sinners, when he represented 
God as in such a hurry to welcome him who had 
returned that he ran to meet him while he was yet 
a great way off^ and would not for kisses let him 
tell half his shame and sorrow. Some say 'tis dan- 
gerous to say too much of God's love. Men take 
advantage of it, and become universalists. They 
say : " Preach justice for bread ; let mercy be cake." 



The Bible is the centre jewel of which creation is 
the setting. 

Were the office of deacon rotary in all churches, 
as it is in ours, we should not see the absurd spec- 
tacle of deacons trying to turn away a minister 
because he had removed deacons who deserved 
removal — thus trying to make the higher office sub- 
servient to the lower. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 187 

While I heartily despise the whole crew of reli- 
gionists — the scribes, pharisees, and learned dunces, 
of our Saviours time, who saw the most wonderful 
things passing about them, and did not know it, I 
don't want to be caught playing the same fool's 
part, in respect to what God is working in our land 
and times. 

I want to praise God, and take part in helping it 
alono:. 



The most of everything is that which is unex- 
pressed. 

Words are but little bubbles thrown up to 
express what lies below, forever inexpressible. 



EccLEsiASTicisM has always been the devil's cloak 
under which to work evil. 



The faults of those first Christians do me more 
good than their virtues do. If they had been exem- 
plary men we should have been apt to feel that as 
a matter of course God would take care of them, 
and hear their prayers, and we could take little 
encouragement from it; but we sec that they were 
very much like ourselve?, and that irives u& coiir- 
ao:e. 



188 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

There is not a street in Brooklyn where I could 
not point you out heroic women before whom the 
chronicled deeds of the historic dames of the 
ancient world would blush for very shame of their 
own insignificance. The world has advanced. 
Heroic deeds have become so common that they 
pass unnoticed. 



When you"^ have repented of your wrong and 
turned from it — no matter with how little feeling, 
for who feels enough to forsake his sin feels suffi- 
ciently, and the man that is scourged like a hound 
by feeling is none the better for more than it took 
to turn him — you are not to trouble yourself about it 
any more, 

God forgets your sin when he forgives it. So 
may, so ought you. 

Great sinners who have offended against honesty 
and purity, when they are converted, sometimes try 
to keep their former sins up before them ; lest, una- 
ware, they who had been so awfully wicked, should 
forget it, and enjoy themselves, 

They check every pleasurable emotion by the 
reflection : " Ah ! think, think, what it was that you 
did. You are not worthy to laugh and be glad." 

True ; they are not worthy. Nor is any one, in 
and of himself; but I care not what their sins may 
have been, when they are forgiven of God, they 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 189 

should be cast into the depths of the sea, and 
remembered no more forever. 

The man that keeps tormenting himself by the 
memory of repented and forsaken sins, is a fool — a 
fool ! To repent and forsake sin is sufficient, when 
there is no way of making an atonement ; but if 
there is a way, the atonement must be made, or 
you may be sure that your repentance is a sham, 
and will never be accepted. 



Men confess everything but their own besetting 
sins. They steer quite clear of these. Who ever 
heard a man say : " O Lord ! I am as proud as 
Satan — humble me;" or, '' O Lord! I am so mean 
and stingy, that 'tis only with great pain that I can 
unclose my fists. Make me generous." 



Suppose I were to set out on a pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem, and before I started were to go to 
Brown Brothers & Co., and obtain letters of credit 
for the cities of London, Jericho, etc. Then, witli 
these papers which a child might destroy, which 
would be but ashes in the teeth of flame, which a 
thousand chances miglit take from me, I should go 
on with confidence and cheer, saying to myself, 
" As soon as I come to London I shall be in funds. 



190 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

I have a letter in my pocket from Brown Brothers 
& Co., which will give me five hundred dollars 
there ; and in the other cities to which I am bcJund 
I shall find similar supplies, all at my command, 
through the agency of these magic papers and pen 
strokes of these enterprising men." But, suppose 
that instead of this confidence I were to sit down on 
shipboard, and go to tormenting myself in this 
fashion : " Now, what am I to do when I get to 
London ? I have no money, and how do I know 
that these bits of paper which I have with me mean 
anything, or will amount to anything? What shall 
I do ? I am afraid I shall starve in the strange 
city to which I am going." I should be a fool, you 
say ; but should I be half the fool that that man is 
who, bearing the letters of credit of the Eternal 
God, yet goes fearing all his way, cast down and 
doubting whether he shall ever get safe through his 
journey? No fire, no violence, nor any chance, 
can destroy the checks of the Lord. When he says : 
"I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee," and 
" my grace shall be sufficient for thee," believe it ; 
and no longer dishonor your God by withholding 
from him the confidence which you freely accord to 
Brown Brothers & Co. 



w 



LIVING WOKDS FKOM rLYMOUTH PULPIT. 191 

The years ! how they have passed. They are 
gone as clouds go, on a summer day. They came, 
they grew, they rolled full-orbed ; they waned, they 
died, and their story is told. 

Tears that wrought upon us, in thought and deed, 
with the force and power of eternity ; years, whose 
marks we shall carry forever, were dissolved like 
the dew, and their work is finished. 

And the days have gone. With a gentle swell 
comes their knell backward to us, over the ocean. 
Slipped from their cables, the bright days glide one 
by one away from us, drifting with airy speed over 
the shoreless tide, beating faint, sweet measures as 
they recede from our longing view. We may stand 
long upon the shore, and call them ; but they will 
not return ; they are ours no more. 

Awful is the dirge of j^ears. It is an anthem 
too solemn and grand for tears ; but we may weep 
for the dying days. Faintly they sigh to us of 
by-gone hours, of moments fragrant with all human 
joys, of friends and familiars, whose smiles at morn- 
ing cheered our way, but whose faces at evening 
were covered ; for still as life lengthens the shadows 
fall, and the past is forever gathering treasures. 

The hopes that are born, that grow ripe and die, 
float out, as the days, on the ebbing tide. 

Gorgeous and i-ich are the shrines in many 
lands, but what temple was ever ])nilded as some 



192 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

days are. Marvellous fancies, deeds, in whose do- 
ing the heart grows strong, thoughts too mighty for 
words, feelings that are deeper than the utmost 
depths of thought; these are the material out of 
which days are built, and no Vatican or cathedral 
walls ever blazed with such glories of picture as are 
often painted on single days. 

As they move softly towards the far horizon, how 
do our hearts follow, with yearning love, the mo- 
tions of the parting days ! We would hold them 
back, but we cannot, and in the golden sunset the 
bright days sink. And with them how nmny that 
we loved depart. Loved ! nay, love^ for the love 
remains to shine on the memory of those who have 
left us, like the lamps that are kept burning in 
sepulchres. 

Two weeks ago I told you that three thousand 
dollars had got to be raised to pay for the repairs 
of this house. 

The plates were sent round, and about six hun- 
dred dollars were raised. 

I was heartily ashamed, and have not got over 
it yet. Last week the trustees came, and asked me 
if I would name the matter again, and I said : 
'' ]N"o, I will not,''^ But this week, upon their re- 
newed application, I have consented to speak once 
more. If this don't do, you may pay your debt 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 193 

how you can; for I will never mention it again. 
I'm not going to be a pump to be thrust into men's 
pockets to force up what ought to come up freely. 

When the surgeon comes to a place where he 
must cut, he had better cut. For more than a year 
I've seen that our plate-collections grew meaner 
and meaner. I didn't want to face you with such 
things as I've got to say to-day, and I put it off as 
long as I could. Now I shall speak plainly once 
for all, not having the face to bring the matter up 
again. This debt has got to be paid, and will you 
meet it honorably, and pay it like men, or vrill you 
let it drip, drip, drip out of you reluctantly, a few 
dollars at a time ? You can take your choice. I'm 
not going to try to drill money out of you as I would 
drill stones. Our lecture-room holds about three 
hundred people, and we collect from thirty to eighty 
dollars there every time we pass the plate. Our 
best Christians attend the weekly meetings, and 
they ar'e always the most generous. In this con- 
gregation, that numbers over three thousand, we 
don't average one cent per head in our collections. 

While there are, thank God, many of his poor 
among us, who cannot give him a shilling without 
making a difference in all their arrangements for a 
whole week, there are hundreds of men here who 
ought to be ashamed ever to give anything but 
gold, or, at least a bill. And they are ashamed to 

I 



194 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

do it. Don't they, when the plate approaches, and 
they have put their fingers in their pockets and 
selected a quarter — the smoothest one that they can 
find — use admirable tact and skill in conveying it 
to the plate, so that no one shall see what they give ? 
Pious souls! they don't allow their left hand to 
know what their right hand doeth. If they have 
two bills, one good, one broken, they'll generally 
give the broken one to the Lord. The amount of 
meanness among resj)ectable people is appalling. 
One needs to take a solar microscope in order to 
see some men, I'm williug to give my share, to do 
whatever the trustees desire ; I shall say no more. 



I WOULD not, for the world, bring up a child to 
have that horror of death which huug over my own 
childhood. 

I think I never came nearer swooning than when 
I heard of the death of one of my young com- 
panions. I walked in a shadow for two days, 
hardly able to tell whether I was in the body or 
out of it. 

The thought of death was to me awful beyond 
description. The toll of the funeral bell would 
cheat me out of my most desired meal. To my 
imagination its stroke was thus : " Death ! hell ! 
damnation !" Our children should be taught that 



LIVING "WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 195 

a funeral is the nearest place to heaven ; instead of 
which, I think, they oftener feel it to be the nearest 
place there is on earth to hell. 

I do not say what death should be to the impeni- 
tent — it is a pass- at which no mistake can be recti- 
fied — let all beware how they come np to it ; but 
I say this, that to the Christian, and to the little 
child, it is the best and most joyful thing that life 
leads to — the portal into everlasting blessedness; 
and thus it should always be represented. 

Tell yonr child when, after long imprisonment 
in school, he one day hears his father at the gate, 
come to take him home, and while his young heart 
shakes his whole frame in nervous ecstasy, that this 
is like what dying is, but nof half as much, or half 
as joyful. Death is vacation. God comes to take 
us from this old, rolling academy, a good school, 
but a hard one, and bear us home with him. Then, 
should the house be draped *with signs of woe, as if 
it were plague-smitten ? 



TouNG men, you come here to get good advice ; 
now hear ic. I tell you there is nothing in the 
world so profitable as are lying and stealing — I 
should not like to drop down now, before I finished 
this sentence — so profitable in the beginning, but 
so sure to be hit by God's lightning at the end. 



196 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

You can gain fast, but you will lose fearfully and 
rapidly. 

When suspicion begins to touch you the end is 
near. 

And when that time comes, if the rocks would 
fall from their everlasting beds and crush you and 
hide you, it would be unutterable mercy, compared 
with the burden of shame and contempt that you 
must bear. 

My heart is towards the young yet. Only when I 
look in the glass and see how the grey hairs are com- 
ing on my head, do I know that I am growing old. 
By the beating of my heart I should never know it. 
My heart is towards the young yet. Would that I 
could W2irn them so that they would heed ; but they 
hear me, and they will go away and remember 
naught. They will ioWow their footsteps who are 
as sure to topple and go down to ruin as the sun is 
to rise and shine. 

There are men in both these cities, whose names 
I could call, on whom the eyes of those just enter- 
ing the work of life are fixed for imitation, but 
whose end is damnation. 

See how it is with many corrupt public men. 
One lately died in ITew England. They prosper 
for a time. Then sink into obscurity, and after a 
while there is a little paragraph in the paper — 
" Such a one is deadP That is all that men see. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 197 

But could they look into the man, and see his men- 
tal history for his last few years ; could they see 
the disappointed hopes, the defeated plans, the cha- 
grins, the mortifications ; see all the vermin that 
haunted the secret chambers of that abused house ; 
the evil thoughts, the wicked wishes that ran in and 
out, like rats and reptiles in old, dilapidated and 
gipsy-haunted fortresses, see the man stranded, 
high and dry, dropping, dropping, dropping ; until 
at last the rotten thing sunk entirely and fell into 
utter corruption, and the papers said, ''He is dead," 
they would not be so eager so follow his steps, nor 
to dare his end. A snake can lap itself around till 
it inserts its tail into its mouth ; if I had power to 
ring life thus, and make its ends meet, I could save 
many ; but the sweet comes first, and men will not 
believe in the bitter imtil it is too late. 

The lad tries being industrious for a week, and 
because he don't see immediate good results he 
gives up the efi'ort. He tries dishonesty, and the 
gain is in his hands at once ; so he calls evil, good ; 
forgetting that evil is always ready grown, and 
yields its pleasant fruit at once. That's the best he 
will ever have from it ; afterwards it grows worse 
and worse continually. 

Good is ungrown and imperfect in this life, and 
often its fruit is very long in ripening. Evil is tlie 
plump, round egg ; Good, the callow and uniledij^ed 



198 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

bird, imshapelj, helpless, and that cannot even 
peep "with any strength. 

But by and by the true nature of each will ap- 
pear. Suppose a man were to go out and sow rad- 
ish seed and acorns at the same time. In a few 
weeks he goes to see how they do. 

" Oh!" he says, ''radishes are a great deal better 
for timber than oak is. Here I sowed my seed a 
month or more ago, and the acorns haven't even 
sprouted, while the radishes are as big as my wrist." 

Tou plant your evil, and it springs up like rad- 
ishes, when your good has not even sprouted. A 
man says, '^I told the truth all last week, even 
many times to my own hurt, and I got into a great 
deal of trouble by it. This week IVe told lies all 
the week, and I can see that there has been much 
advantage to me in it." ISTobody thinks indiscrimi- 
nate lying would be good, but each man thinks 
that if everybody else would speak truth^ he should, 
then, be a great gainer by lying. 

Often it does look to us as it looked to the psalm- 
ist himself, that the way to be prosperous and 
happy is to be bad, and the way to be miserable is 
to be good. But the truth is not so. 



God works upon man by means of all events, all 
natural influences. The mere naturalist goes abroad 



LIVING WORDS FROM > LYMOUTH PULPIT. 199 

and says, " Don't tell me that I'm what God makes 
me. I'm what my parents make me, what natural 
law makes me, -what social influences make me. 
I'm the child of ten thousand diflerent influences." 
The pious dreamer says, '' I am fashioned by God;" 
he jumps all intervening causes, as entirely unwor- 
thy of notice. As usual, extremes meet in a com- 
mon blunder. God does not work directly on man, 
save in exceptional cases. Where a man was born 
and how he is nurtured and taught, make him ; but 
all the influences thaf play upon him are ordained 
of God. Man is as an instrument of music whose 
key board is so broad that a hundred liands may 
play upon it, and each player execute diflerent 
tunes. Many and diverse influences operate at 
once upon the mind of man, and although the direc- 
tion in which he was set at his birth will have 
something, perhaps much, to do with what he be- 
comes, his native tendencies will be modified by 
ten thousand circumstances. The natural things 
which touch the man are all under the control of 
the Supernal Power. 

Children think much more and much more 
deeply than we are aware, upon religious subjects. 

I remember that I was seriously exercised upon 
the doctrines of election, free-agency, etc., by tlio 
rime that I was eight years old. I was brouglit up 



200 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

on doctrine. The things that most influence child- 
ren are aoted things ; not things that are said. 

I don't remember to have been affected by any 
sermon until I was more than thirteen years old. 
But the prayer and talking meetings were the ones. 
I used to be convicted there ; and I would go about 
trying to be " pricked in the heart." I had got 
that figure and so tried to prick myself. I wanted 
to be taken up by some resistless wind of convic- 
tion, and to be made to suffer such agonies about 
my sinful state as I had heard others teli of; for I 
thought that right after that would follow conver- 
sion, and I should be safe. 

I don't think fear has much really good influence 
upon children — a j^oioerful influence it certainly 
does have. I remember once we children were all 
called together into our kitchen — which we thought 
the best room in the house ; its windows looked out 
upon trees and flowers, and its door, when opened, 
revealed the long line of road along which we 
always made haste to run as soon as we could gain 
our freedom. "We were called into the kitchen to 
be talked to by a minister who was staying at my 
father's. He told us how wicked boys and girls 
were by nature, and what an awful end was before 
them if they never repented. He told us the story 
of one wicked boy who saw the devil coming after 
him. The idea almost froze our young blood with 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 201 

horror, and we resolved with all our might to be 
good, that such a fate might not befall us. But as 
for myself I don't think that talk ever did me one 
particle of good ; on the contrary, I believe I never 
did cut up so bad any one week as I did that week, 
spite of all my efforts to stop myself by thoughts 
of that dreadful story, and of how I should feel to 
see the devil coming up the road after me, 

I remember that one Sunday morning, as soon as 
I awoke, I began to play, picking the cotton out of 
the quilt, and rolling it into balls to throw at my 
brother. Suddenly came the thought " You wicked 
boy ! to begin the Sabbath by playing." 

At once I was condemned, and ducked beneath 
the bed-clothes lest something dreadful should catch 
me. There I lay quietly five minutes, as long as I 
ever kept still. 

There came a woman to live with us — Aunty 
Chandler we were taught to call her ; she became 
my fast friend, and used to beg me off from whip- 
pings. There was a tree whose apples used to get 
me up and out early in the morning. I was often 
whipped for stealing them ; but whippings used to 
make me very brave. One morning, just as I was 
stealing out to go for the apples, Aunty Chandler 
stopped me : ^' Oli ! Henry," she said, tears rolling 
down her face, ^' I cannot bear to have you 
whipped so; why vnU you go and get those apples?" 

12 



202 LIYINa WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

This was a new idea. It had never struck mc 
that Aunty 0. *got the whippings on her heart. 
After that there were not ropes enough in old Con- 
necticut to draw my young feet to that tree. 

In those days people used to get together and 
pray and make a solemn time of it when a train of 
emigrants were about to start for Ohio. It was 
almost as if they were to start for another world. 
Well do I remember the long lines of white-covered 
wagons that used to wind through Litchfield, and I 
used to run into the house and hide under the table 
that they might not steal and carry me off. Well, 
the time came when Aunty Chandler went away in 
one of those slow-moving trains. I shall never for- 
get it. I thought I was near the end of my gospel 
when she went. Her life was strong in its good 
influence upon me. Next came a negro servant. 
He was my next evangelist. I used to watch him 
in the field, and in the house, and even now, with 
my mature reflection, I cannot remember ever to 
have seen him do a wrong act. As I worked be- 
side him in the field, he used to tell me his expe- 
rience, and where he learned this and that hymn ; 
and then he would sing as only the African can 
sing, and I used to wish that I could have such 
religion as that negro enjoyed. When we went to 
bed — he and I slept in the same garret, he in one 
corner and I in the other ; some people would think 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 203 

it a dreadful thing to have to share a garret with a 
negro — when we went to bed he used to pile his 
pillow^s lip behind him so that he could lie sitting 
up^ take his hymn-book, fasten his candle up some- 
where so that he could see, and commence having 
a regular good time. He would sing hymn after 
hymn with such relish and enjoyment, the big 
tears frequently rolling down his dark face, that 1 
used to be cut to the heart with remorse, that I, a 
minister's son, brought up with every advantage, 
should be so much worse than a poor negro. I 
would lie there and pretend to be asleep, while all 
the time was singing right at my con- 
science, and I was crying heartily to hear him. 
Oh! how glad I should have been could I have 
changed places with that poor negro serving- 
man, if it hadn't been for cheating him. I think 
that livedo acted out religion does more good to 
children than all the talking that can be done, 
though talking certainly should not be omitted. 
That African did me more good than all the minis- 
ters that ever came to my father's house. 



The infidelity of the last twenty-five years has 
been that which has sought to emasculate religion, 
by separating it from practical life, and lifting it so 
far above everybody's daily and iamiliar use, that 
they might as w^ell be without it. The pretence is, 



204 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

that religion is too sacred to be rendered useful in 
common matters. Over the church doors men 
write: " Religion is religion;" and o\^^r the store 
door: "Business is business." And the church says 
to business : '' Don't you come in here ;" and the 
store says to religion : " Don't you come in hereP 

Man rejects the interference of the higher law in 
his business as an impertinence. But when Sunday 
comes, he says : '^ We've had enough of business 
all the week ; now let us have the blessed Gospel." 

And the minister must confine himself to 
" Christ and him crucified." He mustn't mention 
love to God and man shown in business transac- 
tions, for he must preach the Gospel ; he mustn't 
exhort to temperance, for he must preach the 
Gospel; he mustn't preach of justice, purity, and 
humanity, for he must preach the Gospel. 

Why, if men catch ''the higher law" on 'change, 
or in the street, they hoot at it, they chase it, they 
hit it, and drive it from among them, crying out : 
''Here is this higher law escaped out of the 
church, and out of the Sunday." 



The worst spectacle which this country now 
presents is not, I think, the governmental or politi- 
cal corruptions, though these are enormous ; but it 
is that of a religious body, like the one in Ifew 



LIVING- WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 205 

York, utterly refusing to open its mouth against 
the blackest iniquity of the age. 

And for what, in the name of Heaven? What 
reason do they give for their strange silence? 
Why, because if it does speak against this sin it 
will not be allowed to preach the Gospel. If every 
sin were as powerful as is the sin of slavery, what 
would these preachers of the Gospel do? Keep 
silence in regard to them all, of course ; for, accord- 
ing to their views, only the smaller and least pow- 
erful sins can be safely hit. 

That ponderous body can bombard men bravely 
for using tobacco, but it can't say one word against 
selling men and women to raise it. It can spend 
itself and exert its tremendous machinery against 
the awful y^ of the dancing of young men and 
maidens ; but can't utter a sound when maidens 
are sold to prostitution, and young men are driven 
off, in chain-gangs, to the rice swamps of Georgia. 

The use which I make of such men, is to point 
the young to them, and say : " There are men 
whom you must shun to resemble." 

The worst stamp of Phariseeism was not in our 
Saviour's day. It has, after years of monstrous 
growth, exhibited itself in the nineteenth century. 



The Bible sets us an example of fiishioning 
for ourselves a personal God to suit our need. 



206 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

When I find Paul using figures to represent to 
himself God, as his wants required him, I know 
that I may do the same thing. When I want love, 
I may make God my tender and loving father, or 
sister, or mother. When I want pity, I may make 
him a being of unfailing and boundless pity. 
When I want courage, he is my lion ; when I 
want light and cheer, he is my bright and morning 
star — my God alert, my sun, my bread, my wine. 
We may imagine him everything that is to us good 
and beautiful, tender and true, and know that we 
are not cheating ourselves by vain fancies, but have 
only touched the extreme outer edge of the ever- 
blessed reality. There may be dangers 'in this 
freedom and variety of our representation of our 
God; but there are dangers in all forms of our 
thought of him, and in none half so much as in 
having no realization of him at all, in considering 
him as an abstraction of all the omnis. Thinking 
of him thus, none can ever love him^ or walk with 
him. 

This everlasting twaddle of infidelity about fixed 
natural laws, is simple foolishness. 

I should like to know, now, if Tuan even has not 
as much power over natural laws, wherever they 
touch him, as natural laws have over him. True, 
God says to man, in one place, ^' Obey ;" but in 
other places, he says : ^' Command !" 



LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 207 

Is'ature can work roughly and coarsely in gene- 
ralities ; but she needs men's intellect and will to 
give effect to what she does. 

Through hundreds and thousands of years she 
tried her hand at making apples, and they were 
but GTob-apjples at last. 

Man said, '' I will help you ; and by his industry 
and wisdom, the sour, miserable fruit soon covered 
all the hills with luscious apples. 

I have power over nature's laws to make them 
work for my own and my children's good. I can 
make the lightning my amanuensis and my messen- 
ger. I can make the sun himself my artist ; but 
when did ever the unassisted sun paint a picture ? 
Man whispers to him : '' Come down here, and I 
will tell thee something that thou knowest not," 
and the sun obeys. ^'Go through there," says man, 
and the sun goes through, and finds himself paint- 
ing pictures. I should like to see him try to do that 
alone. I can say to the sea, ^' Wait on my will," 
and it obeys me; to the stream : '*Thou lazy thing, 
llow no longer down hill, but up," and it flows up. 
When I turn it into a machine, I say to the water, 
'' Grind," and it grinds my food. Katural laws are 
God's horses, and he says to man : '^ Yault," and he 
who can ride them is their master. By working 
them according to their nature, we can make them 
to do a million things that they could never do 



£08 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

without US. By obeying, we command. They are 
the blind giants which our will and wisdom guide. 
Is not this true? Have I perplexed you with meta- 
physics ? Have I not rather showed you plain 
facts, which you can follow out to almost any 
extent ? 

Remember, the question between me and the 
infidel naturalist is not, " Does God disturb natural 
laws in order to answer the prayers of his people, 
or does he do violence to nature that he may do 
any man good ?" but it is this : '' Is it, or is it not^ 
likely that he is able to do for those who call upon 
him and whom he loves as well as man can do by 
means of natural law for those dear to JiiraT^ In 
other words, ^' Is it likely that one who has given 
to his creatures such wonderful power over laws of 
his own creating, should be himself so bound and 
hampered by them that there should be with him 
no possibility of any modification of their working 
to suit circumstances? The idea is absurd, and 
they are fools who indulge it. That man who says 
and believes that there is no effect on God's feel- 
ings and actions by prayer, is not a Christian. I'd 
rather a man would do as Martin Luther did— lay 
down his hand on a promise and say to God, 
" Now, here is thy word, O ! Lord ! fulfill it to me, 
or I never will believe thee again, as long as I 
live." God will interfere and help us, no matter 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 209 

what laws we have broken. If we didn't break 
laws we shouldn't need his help ; because we have 
broken, and do break them, he does help all who 
trust in him and even most of those that don't. 
When it is proved that praying alters nothing, I 
will say of the Bible, '' It was a pleasant book ; but 
it has passed." 

Not all prayers are answered. When you ask 
for what would take away motive for exertion ; 
when you ask for what you do not really need, or 
for what would hurt you, you will not, probably, 
get what you desire. 

But when a man, out of his deep want, goes to 
God for a good gift which he is powerless to gain 
for himself, he shall have it. This is the seal. 
God is more willing to give good gifts unto them 
that ask him, than parents are to give good gifts 
unto their children. Do you believe that f 



I DO not fear science; I love it. I do not look 
with jealous eye upon it lest it cut off some of my 
ground. I accept all truth, when it is proved, no 
matter where it carries me ; but I don't accept 
what every man calls truth, any more than I be- 
lieve the tale of every beggar that comes to my 
door. 

Infidels are workin^j^ for God, thou£]:h thev do not 



210 LIVING WORDS FROM Pi^YMOUTH PULPIT. 

know it. They shake and rend his truths until 
they think that they have destroyed them, but 
they have only cleared them of the shuck. 1 
think infidels are like swine that, going into a corn- 
field tear down the mighty grass, and crunch its 
leaves and ears, trampling into the earth all that 
they cannot eat. Then, they go out thinking that 
they have devoured or buried all the corn. Yes, 
they have buried it for resurrection ; for from its 
grave it shall rise in tenfold glory, to wave all the 
more luxuriantly for that husbandry of hoof and 
snout. So is it with infidel swine in the corn- 
field of God's Word. 



"Whoever has been enabled to take hold upon 
another's interest in such a manner as to give him- 
self^ for the time being, for that other, and to feel 
that his friend's life is dearer than his own, has at- 
tained to one of the purest and highest states into 
which man on earth ever comes. And he should 
understand that a very high experience has been 
granted him. 

To be lifted above temptations ; never to have a 
wrong thought, or a wrong moving of the aflections, 
is a very good thing, but it is not being so Christ 
like as he is who bears upon his soul another's 
life — who sufi*ers for him, yearns for him, would 
give his life to do him good. This is the very 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 211 

spirit of Christ Jesus, and if we suffer with him we 
shall also reign with him. And we must suffer 
with him, if we would reign with him. But now, 
the other truth which meets this. We have no 
business to be so linked with any other human 
being as that their destination shall be ours. All 
suffering more than that which makes us rea'dy to 
do all in our power for their good, we must fight 
against. It can do only harm. We must have our 
best and dearest friends to know that our peace in 
God cannot be destroyed. I^ot husband nor wife, 
brother nor sister, nor friends have any right to cause 
rust and canker to enter our souls for tliem. ^YllO 
shall separate us from the love of God ? We must 
do all we can, and do it in a cheerful, winning 
way, so as not to repel and torment them, thus hin- 
dering the very thing we would hasten. But when 
we have done all we must wait God's time. This 
is what all those injunctions to patience mean. 
But there is another thought, " What if our friends 
should die ?" You have no right to meddle with 
that, nor to try to settle the state of any one who 
does die. And, beside, do you not know that this 
necessity of seeing men go unprepared to death, 
was what the apostles, the prophets, yes, and 
Christ himself was obliged to look upon and bear? 
But remember, God's pity is for the time of trouble 
and distress. He is your tower — run into it, and 



212 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

be safe. I would not give two cents for a faith 
that wouldn't help me while I need help. Christ 
has offered to bear my burdens, and he shall have 
them. Here are my trials, temptations, and woes, 
not in heaven, and here is where I have most need 
of my Saviour. 



No man is born into the full Christian charac- 
ter, any more than he is born into the character 
of a man when he comes into the world. A man 
at conversion is in tlie state of one who has just 
oome into possession of an old homestead. He has 
the title and he can make for himself a beautiful 
home. But the dust, the dirt, and the cobwebs 
of years choke all the rooms, and must be cleared 
away. Many sills and beamxS are rotten and must 
be replaced by new ones. Chambers must be re- 
fitted, walls newly plastered, the whole roof must 
be searched over, and every leak stopped. There 
must be a thorough cleausing and repair before the 
mansion is habitable ; and when all this is done 
'tis only an empty house that the man has. 

The same kind of thing that a man is, who has 
trained himself into freedom from wrong, without 
having become faithful in right deeds. 

Now for a man's house he may buy carpets ready 
made ; but there is no loom that will weave car- 
pets for his heart, except the loom that is in him- 



LIVING WORDS FROM! PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 213 

self. Furniture, beds, cliairs, and tables, he may 
buy for his house, but rest and peace for his soul 
can only be worked out within his soul, and long 
labor it often proves. He may purchase paintings, 
whose voiceless language shall make eloquent his 
walls, and statues to grace niche and pedestal, and 
books to fill his many shelves, but the painter, the 
sculptor and the publisher for the man's mentnl 
house are all in his own heart. 



We are all painting pictures in the dark. Oh ! 
this painting in the dark ! what is to be revealed 
when the light cometh? It is fearful. 



I THINK that persons who are sincerely resolved 
to fashion themselves upon the pattern of Christ, 
but who can see no marks upon, or in themselves 
of their own success, are like artists painting in the 
dark, beautiful pictures which shall astonish them 
with their loveliness when the morning shines upon 
their work. Or, they are like flowers, talking to- 
gether in the night, and saying: *'We are not 
beautiful as we desire to be." They wished to be 
arrayed in gay colors, and to have jewels of dew 
upon their buds and leaves ; but they answer 
mournfully to each other's questionings : '' It is all 



214 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

darkness upon you; nothing can be seen." Then 
they hold up their heads, and stretch out their 
leaves; but a weight oppresses them, and again 
they droop, complaining that no brightness or 
beauty is given them. But all the while the night 
is distilling its gentle moisture on those uncon- 
scious flowers, and the very jewels for which they 
murmur and sigh, are gathering thickly on every 
leaf and stem. They are bathed in the dew of 
freshness and fragrance, and crowned with the 
most radiant gems. And by and by, the morn- 
ing breaks, and the moment that the glorious sun 
rolls above the horizon, and floods, with his slant 
beams, the world, ten million flowers glisten and 
glow with jewels of such lustre as was never known 
m diamond from Golconda's mines, nor in any pre- 
cious stone on monarch's brow. 



Periodical excitements are normal to the hu- 
man constitution. Our very life stands on this 
foundation. Sixteen hours' excitement and. eight 
hours' stupor — sleep. 

There is in the human soul " a common feeling," 
which, being roused and stimulated, renders it pos- 
sible for men to do in one hour the ordinary work 
of ten. It is somewhere said, " God never works 
by periodical fits." But I can hardly think of an 
instance in which he works otherwise. 



ji 



LIVING WOPwDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 215 

A man has a right to stimulate himself, for right 
purposes, in his lower, intermediate, and higher 
nature. It is needful that he should do so. All men 
recognize this need in regard to business, politics, 
social life^ — but if needful here, where the senses 
and even selfishness have much influence, how 
much more needful when we rise into the realm of 
moral and sjDiritual things ! Revivals of religion 
are in strict accordance with natural law. They 
are not to supersede the regular, calm, organized 
action of the church, but to work with all tliis, as 
an occasional, especial power. Men are energized 
by the Holy Spirit, and made able to work rapidly. 
But when the excitement is worn out, let it go. 
Don't try to keep it up unnaturally, or by effort. 
All strong feeling must rest qiiick. 

To men who object to this intensifying a work, 
or to repenting in a hurry and under excitement, it 
may be said, " See to it, then, that you take the first 
calm moments when the reaction arrives to become 
a Christian, or you will prove that these objections 
of yours are all mere excuses to escape conver- 
sion." 

When men have a great stone to move, they first 
dig away all the earth around it, working moder- 
ately and taking care to reserve their strength. 
When the earth is removed, they apply their lever, 
ai)d now all take hold. At the word, "Now 



216 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

heave, men, heave !" each man strains with nerve 
and sinew- — he throws his whole strength into that 
moment's effort, and the stone is forced from its 
bed. 

1^'ow what if some man, just as the final effort 
were about to be made were to cry out, " Stop, men, 
stop ! Have you reflected well on what you are 
about to do ? Have you thought whether you will 
be able to keep on working all day at the rate you 
will work while upheaving that stone ?" 

What better than this is he who objects to being 
lifted up upon the spring tide of a revival, because 
he is afraid he cannot always afterwards live up to 
that mark. 

He is not required to live so. It is not possible. 
His feelings should always be deep like the sea ; 
but they should not always roll and swell like the 
sea's agitated waves. 

There are seasons in which the social and the 
moral feelings should thus move and mount, and at 
such times becoming a Christian is much easier 
work than at others ; and although there are many 
very good Christians born when all is calm, and 
there is no religious excitement about them, yet I 
like a revival-born Christian best; for he is apt to 
be more open-hearted and of more use. 

Some say revivals cause a great deal of self- 
deception — quick conversions are not apt to bo 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 217 

thorough. This might be a sensible remark among 
heathens who do not know the first principles of 
the Gospel ; but in communities like ours, where 
from the very cradle men are taught all the head 
knowledge that they need, and where the question 
is simply one of the will, " Will you submit to 
the rule of Christ, renouncing the ways of wicked- 
ness, or will you not ?" it's a mere quibble of unbe- 
lief. The New Testament pauses not a moment 
over such miserable arguments. " Repent and be- 
lieve now^^' is its doctrine, and three thousand souls 
were added to the church in one day. The Lord 
recognized the fact that many tares would be 
gathered in with the wheat ; but he never, on that 
account, sanctioned people to wait to le soundly 
converted. " Let both grow together till the har- 
vest," is his command. 

This doctrine of delay, of shunning excitement 
upon a subject which ought always to excite men 
more than anything else can, and which ought to 
cause them to be in the greatest possible haste, is a 
delusion and trap of the devil, in which he has 
caus-ht thousands of souls. 



Struggling and distressed Christian, when we 
meet in heaven wlicre will bo tliat licart-broak that 
you told me of? 

K 



218 LIYIISTG WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIt. 

Will you not look me in the eyes and laugh to 
think you told me that your heart was breaking ? 



Fkom my window I saw, after the last dreadful 
storm, a ship struggling into port. Her sides were 
all chafed and scarified, as if she had been beset 
by the robber waves and forced to battle for her 
life. Her mast was broken, her sails draggled and 
torn. Her spars ,and yards were gone, and she 
looked almost a wreck. 

Out on the sea the waves had risen against her, 
and all the thievish winds had sought to do her 
harm. A desperate time she had indeed of it, 
but she had made her port ; and now, as she 
dropped her anchor and lay securely in her moor- 
ings, her hull sound, her cargo all safe, her crew 
alive and well, what to her was it that she had 
been obliged to fight her way, or that out at sea 
the waves and winds were even yet raging and 
mad with storms ? She had gained her harbor ; 
she had made a prosperous voyage. The end 
for which she was sent forth she had accomplished 
— not the less nobly that through storm and tem- 
pest she had held upon her way. 

But what was it to the ship John Milton, when 
she was fioating, piece by piece, upoix the waves — 
when hei cargo was all sunken, and her crew all 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 219 

drowned and lying on the beach, or in the sea — • 
that all the first part of her voyage had been plea- 
sant, that all the middle of it had been over smooth 
and sunny seas, that she had passed in safety all the 
islands, and sailed prosperously over the equator ? 
Her voyage was a failure, for she i>ever entered 
port. The end — the end stamps a career as success- 
ful or disastrous ; and the John Milton did not 
answer the end for which she was sent forth. 

Men are as ships sent forth upon the sea, and 
that man who gains the port of heaven, though he 
be more battered and bruised than any shi^D that 
ever sailed up yonder river to its anchorage, he 
is the successful man ; but he who founders on the 
beach, no matter how close it be to the open gates 
of heaven, has made a bad voyage, though his log- 
book may tell of sunshine and fair winds all the way 
to the shoal whereon he struck and found destruction. 



God's glory is his goodness. This, by his own 
showino:. 



The ship of morality draws too much water ever 
to ride into the harbor of salvation. No one ever 
was or ever will be able to enter with her. Her 
keel always reaches too far down. A lighter craft 
must be obtained, or you will be forever outside of 
moorino's. 



220 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

In man's natural state, he inhabits only the 
ground floor of his soul's dwelling — the apartments 
which look out upon the back yard, where is accu- 
mulated all the filth and garbage of the household. 
The upper apartments are all fastened up and 
injured from disuse. 

When a man has deliberately and understand- 
ingly resolved to turn from all his evil ways and 
devote himself heart and soul to the service of 
God, he is converted. There has been too much 
fog and darkness thrown about this simple matter 
of conversion. The whole difference in the state 
of a justified man and a man under condemnation 
is, that one uses himself first for God and his fellow 
creatures, and the other uses himself first for him- 
self^ and second only (if at all) for God and his 
fellows. There are multitudes of men who would 
like to be Christians, if they only knew how ; but 
they are waiting to be struck by some mysterious 
and romantic flash, which will never come. If 
they feel like praising and loving now, let them do 
it ; there is no danger of its being wrong. Many 
wish to be able to hegin their Christian course with 
joy and triumph. Let them begin, even if it be 
in darkness and doubt. The joy and triumph will 
await them at the other end. 

If I had only had somebody to tell me the things 
that I now tell you^ how much trouble I should 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIl. 221 

have escaped ! 1 used to sing hymns from the out- 
side, just as hungry boys, ^Yho have no pennies^ 
look in at bake-shops, through the windows. 

^^ Ah !" I used to think, smelling the hymns, ''I, 
too, could enjoy them, just as all these Christians 
do ; but they are not for me. I am not a Christ- 
ian." ITow^, I say, if there is any one in this lec- 
ture-room, who is holding his heart back from 
feelings that he thinks should belong only to Christ- 
ians, unhand yourselves ; give your heart its will ; 
let it rise, exult, love and praise. . God is working 
in you. To check these feelings, or to hide them, 
is to smother the Holy Spirit. There is no reason 
why any soul before me this hour should not resolve 
to take Jesus Christ for his Lord and love, and rise 
up from his seat a converted man. There is no need 
to go days and weeks under conviction of sin. It 
is no credit to a man to have a terrible time being 
converted. It is a mean business. Suppose that 
I had lied to my partner in business. Suppose he 
were to charge it upon me, and I were to try to 
evade the matter, and were to oblige him to chase 
me through a whole week, crowding me here, pok- 
ing me there, and pressing me in every possible w\ay 
to own my fault ; until at last he cornered me so 
closely, that seeing escape to be impossible, I gave in, 
and said, " Well, I have lied, and I am sorry ;" just 
because I could not help yielding. How mean a 



222 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

spirit should I thus show. How much better, if 
upon sudden press of temptation I had sinned, for 
me to stop at once when the lie was charged upon 
me, and say honestly, blushing crimson with shame, 
'' Yes, yes, I am wrong, all wrong. I am sorry, 
and will do so no more." 

Why will not men, when they see their guilt and 
danger, face right about and make short work with 
themselves ? 



Mirth is the sweet wine of human life. It should 
be offered sparkling with zestful life unto God. He 
desires no emasculated or murdered offerings. 



That which is wickedness per se in man would 
be infinitely worse in God. 



Christians all ouo;ht to reflect the character of 
Christ. But the young Christian says : " It cannot 
be that the Spirit of God is really in me, or I 
should be more like brother so and so. He, now, 
seems a good deal like Christ, but who ever would 
guess what Christ was like, if he judged by me ? I 
wish my experiences were like that good brother's." 
Now suppose the flowers in a garden were to say : 
" Since the rose is the queen of flowers, she should 






LIVING WORDS FR'l^Sl TLYMOUTH PULPIT. 223 

be our example ; we should all bucl, and leaf, and 
blossom, just as the rose does, if we wish to do it 
right/' 

But Tou say: ^'The work of the Spirit of God 
should be the same, should it not ? 7^^ it ever the 
same ? Does God allow any two men ever to per- 
form the same radical acts in the same manner i 
Does he not seem to abhor sameness ? Your 
Christian graces must be such as consist with your 
original nature, the character and disposition which 
God implanted in you at your birth. Tour expe- 
riences will be such as consist with your education 
and circumstances ; they will be unlike those of any 
other person. And you must not be discouraged 
because they do not now shine as do the graces of 
the older Christian ; nor think your graces are 
worthless because they are yet unpolished. The 
negro slave in Brazil, when he works the diamond 
mines, is allowed his freedom when he finds an unu- 
sually large diamond. 

A poor slave who has never seen any diamonds 
but those that are worn upon the breasts of his mas- 
ter, his mistress, and their family and friends, is sent 
to the mines. \Yorking away there, he picks up a 
large stone which looks as if it might be a diamond, 
if it was only bright ; but the negro don't know 
what to think of it. He says it can't be a diamond ; 
but a companion thinks that it is one. Tlie slave 



224 LIVING WOKDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

takes it to his master, who seizes it with exclama- 
tions, and declares to the slave : '' You are a free 
man. There never before was such a diamond 
found in these mines !" 

" What ! massa !" says the trembling slave, in 
great trepidation and bewilderment of joy ; for bad 
as freedom is for negroes, it always excites in them 
powerful emotions of pleasure. " What, massa ? 
dat dull stone a diamond ? It don't look nothing 
like what massa wear in his shirt bosom." 

" But, don't you know, Sambo, that diamonds 
have always to be taken to the lapidary, and 
ground and polished, sometimes for two or three 
years, before they are ready to wear ? This is a 
most valuable diamond ; and you are, from this very 
moment, a free man." 

There are diamonds in the rough among you ; 
but you will be ground and polished in good time. 
The Lapidary has you in hand. 



Theee are men who hold themselves aloof and 
look askance on this mighty revival.^ They see men 
hurrying along at noon towards the various prayer- 
meetings, and they say : " It's a fever which must 
have its way, and then it will subside." They see a 
young man going to the meeting, and think it no- 
thing to excite interest. They do not know that that 

* The great revival of 1857-8. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PCLPIT. 225 

young man had come up to a point where, if 
nothing had occurred to save him, he would have 
been bound over to destruction at the very next 
step. They do not see, in some far distant village, 
the mother or the sister praying and weeping for 
him — no sound of a father's groan is heard — none 
of these things — the petitions that for years have 
assailed the heavens, both day and night, do not 
cling about the youth as he walks the street ; 
but that prayer-meeting God made to answer the 
desire of the parents, and to bring salvation to the 
son. And, eternity will show that the young man's 
walking towards that place of prayer was the begin- 
nino: of his march to heaven. 



I WOULD rather be reckoned with the lowest and 

meanest children of God, than take rank with the 

crowned kings of the earth. I am sorry that all 

Christians don't live so as to glorify their heavenly 

Father ; but even as they are, I would rather clasp 

in my embrace the most imperfect one who really 

is born of God, than to link hands with monarchs 

Where is the man (there are creatures by courtesy 

called men wlio are ashamed of their old-fashioned 

parents, or of their country relatives when they 

meet them in the citv streets — it would take a rciri- 

ment of these miscreants to make a decent-sized 
Iv 2 



226 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

hair for the head of a genuine Quan) who would 
not rush from the presence and communion of 
princes, if he saw on some forlorn and ragged little 
child in the street, the lineaments of his father or 
his mother, and knew that the wanderer was his 
own brother ? Do you tliink that man would not 
choose the ragged child to a dozen princes ? And 
in the Christian's face I ever see the lineaments 
of my belove^'i Father — God. 



A REYiYAL is as whcu a sportsman goes out with 
his gun, and sends its charge into a flock of pigeons. 
Some fall dead at once, and he sees and secures 
them ; but- others, sorely hurt, limp off and hide, to 
die among the bushes. The best part of this"^ revival 
is, that while you can only see those who are shot 
dead and fall down before you, there are, thank 
God! thousands in all parts of the land, being hit 
and wounded, to go off unnoticed to their own 
homes, and God heals them there. 



jfou will bear me witness that two years ago, 
when we were right in the midst of the great 
political excitement of 1856, I said once and 
again, that it was utterly impossible to intone the 

* The great revival of 185Y-8. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLY:NtOi:TH PULPIT. 227 

American public so with the sentiment that Christ- 
ianity must enter into and rule in politics as truly 
and entirely as elsewhere, without laying the foun- 
dations for a reviyal of religion as broad as the 
whole land. The seed then sown is now ripening. 



I THINK, when men sincerely try to work for God 
and souls, they are as men who go out to sow seed 
in a windy day. A few, yery few may drop where 
they think that they sow all ; and when they go to 
seek for fruit, lo ! there is but a handful, and the 
men are disappointed and grieved. But their seed 
is growing in other fields, by the wayside, on the 
mountains, in the forest, everywhere ; and at the 
end they shall be astonished to behold their har- 
vest. 



We say to men, are you willing to serve Christ, 
and to love him ? They answer readily — " Yes, we 
are ; but we want to be convertedP By this they 
mean that they want to have all that hlessedness of 
sensation that they have heard about ; they want to 
find that every tendency and aptitude to sin is cut 
up by the roots. They want to be converted so 
that they'll never have anything more to do but to 
feel the joy of salvation. They want God to do all 
their fiirhtinc; for them, and tliat is what he never 



228 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

will do. When a man is converted, be is set rights 
armed for conflict, and ordered to go on through his 
enemies, until he reaches heaven. He often must 
have hard and bitter times in bis struggles with 
himself; but God's grace will be his stay and con- 
solation, and at the other end he will find what he 
is too apt to look for at this. 



I HAVE hope, I have courage. Our churches are 
certainly purifying themselves ; they are coming 
up to a higher type of religion. That John Baptist 
work before our last election prepared the way, and 
we are going forward. A speech like that just 
made in this meeting,^ twenty years ago would 
have blown it up like a bombshell ; now I don't 
think that we have even lost grace or good nature 
through it. God used to walk by inches ; now he 
goes by seven-league strides. 



This one thing I have noticed in everybody — the 
moment they come to a clear apprehension of the 
love of Christ, they turn right about upon the min- 
ister, or upon the Christians who have been labor- 
ing, perhaps for years, to bring them to that very 

* By a well-known anti-slavery man. 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 229 

point, and say, ''Why didn't yon tell us this be- 
fore ?" 

Why, it's what we've been always telling them. 
I think that trying to point a man to the love of 
Jesus is like trying to show one a star that has just 
come out, the only star in the whole cloudy sky. 

" I can see no star," says the man. " Where is 
it?" 

" Why, there ; don't you see ?" 

But the man shakes his head ; he can see no- 
thing. But by and by, after long looking, he 
catches sight of the star ; and now he can see 
nothing else for gazing at it. He wonders that he 
had not seen it before. 

Just so it is with the soul that is gazing after the 
star of Bethlehem. Nothing in the world seems go 
hidden, so complex, so perplexing, as this thing, 
until it is once seen by the heart, and then, oh I 
there never was anything that ever was thought of 
that is so clear, so simple, so transcendently glo- 
rious. And men marvel that the whole world does 
not see and feel as they do. 



I THINK that I am a man-of-war, and every gun 
in me is a fifty-four-pounder; and when circum- 
stances call for the grace of indignation, I can bear 
my part ; but wrath is not so good as love. 



230 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH FULPIT. 

The everlasting God, who sitteth at the head and 
top of universal dominion, makes himself the ser- 
vant of the very least and lowest of his creatures. 
Should we, then, be too proud to help each other ? 
Should we scorn to lend our help, or influence, or 
sympathy, to the least among our brothers ? How 
despicable must such a disposition in us look to 
God. 



There is nothing of which men know less than 
of themselves. They do not understand how their 
own characters are formed ; they stand in great 
doubt as to their own moral states before God. 
They cannot judge or take account of themselves, 
much less of their fellows. It is a great comfort to 
know that there is One who perfectly knows all 
that is in us, and all that concerns us ; and who will 
take us for just our real worth. It is a comfort to 
trust in God. Oh ! when a little child is weary, 
marching through a desert towards his home, when 
he feels. that he has no longer strength to travel, 
nor wisdom to direct his way,; how glad is he to 
have his father take him in his arms to rest him. 
And when the child, just before falling asleep, 
raises his eyes for one more glance at the face above 
him, and sees it firm and calm and set for home, 
how sweetly he resigns himself to slumber, confi- 
dent that all is well. And thus do we, in the 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 231 

weary march througli life, sometimes love to recline 
upon the bosom of the Eternal Traveller, and take 
our horn' of rest coniidino; in our God. 



There are men in this congregation who are in 
the situation of undermined towers of a beleaguered 
city. I have seen the enemy hollowing them out 
at the foundations, I have seen the kegs of gun- 
powder rolled in, and the train laid, and now I see 
the enemy hiding just behind his covert, with his 
slow match in his hand, waiting for the word to fire 
the train. I have warned the fated men, but they 
will not heed me. I cannot even pray for them 
any more ; but I live in daily expectation of the 
explosion ; I wait the hour which shall blow them 
to destruction ; for I know, almost as though it were 
already passed, that their doom is sealed. 

jSTow if any of you before me tremble, and think, 
despairingly, '• It is I," probably it is not you. 
The anxious and troubled ones are not those who 
are given over to ruin. 



We are all so imperfect, that when we really 
consider of our case, remembering that God sees us 
as if by candles, into the very darkest parts of our- 
selves, we wonder how he can love even the best of 
-ps. All men believe that God exercises a general 



232 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

benevolence towards men ; but that his feelings to- 
wards them amount to actual love — yearning, ten- 
der, desiring love, and that in regard to the most 
wicked, the prowling thief, the vile lecher, the lost 
and desperate — even the murderer. This is what 
staggers us. That he loves not only his elect, who 
strive to serve him, but wretches, just because it is 
in his own disposition to love w^hat needs love, is 
our God's chief glory. That he has something in 
his pure and holy nature which causes him to love 
sinners, while he abhors their sins, is Gospel teach- 
ing. Herein lies our hope and our salvation, for it 
was while we were yet at enmity with God that he 
sent his Son to die for us. 



A PIRATE cannot be pardoned for his piracy 
because he is generous, and in most respects a 
moral fellow. He is out on the high seas as a 
pirate, and is game for hemp and gallows, though 
he read his Bible every day, and do a thousand 
kind and good actions every week. But if he 
repent of his ways, and try to become an honest 
seaman, a few forgetful oaths may be forgiven him. 
If he is sailing right, and with right intentions, he 
will not be strictly dealt with, though he do knock 
down a man now and then when he ought not. 
So a man who has not accepted Christ as his 



LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 233 

Saviour, who is using himself just as God did not 
intend that he should be used, need not hope that 
his occasional good and generous deeds can do him 
any service in the matter of salvation. A man 
who has given himself to Christ can be forgiven 
and helped anew, if he halt and stumble, because 
his face is set in the right way, and his heart's 
desire is that he may attain unto a perfect obedi- 
ence. His sins will be each day pardoned by the 
mercy of him to whom he looks for all of this life, 
and that which is to come. 



There are no troubles which have such a wast- 
ing and disastrous effect upon the mind, as those 
which must not be told ; but which cause the mind 
to be continually rolling and turning over upon 
itself, in ceaseless convolutions and unrest. 



There are a thousand things which between the 
right persons are pure, but which are so sacred and 
delicate that the merest touch from the world can- 
not be given without causing the utmost pain. 
One who would go eavesdropping to catcli the con- 
fidences of parent and child, husband and wife, or 
lover and lover, and would then, to the distress 
and confusion of those concerned, report what ho 
had heard, is a scoundrel. 



234 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

The common way of representing God as being 
very anxious for and jealous of his own glory, has 
a bad influence on the minds of men until they 
justly understand what his glory is. TVe are not 
left in douibt as to that. Moses prayed and said, 
" I beseech thee, show me thy glory." And the 
Lord passed by, proclaiming, not might, majesty, 
and dominion, not omnipotence, nor any awful at- 
tribute, but, ^'The Lord, tlie Lord God, merciful 
and gracious, long sufi*ering and abundant in good- 
ness and truth." These are the things in which 
God places his glory ; and this is the glory which 
man is called upon to promote, and which God is 
bent upon preserving. 



The old-fashioned lightning-rods were made all 
in one ; and when they drew the bolt it came with 
mighty force, and the crash often did much damage; 
but now the old plan is improved, and by having 
many points to the rod the lightning is scattered, and 
made to strike wdth greatly divided and dimin- 
ished force, and to sink harmlessly to the earth. 
If conviction were to strike the sinner as lightning 
strikes the first sort of rod, the man could no more 
live than he could were he to look into the face of 
God. But through the mercy of Jesus Christ, it 
strikes only point by point, a separated and en- 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 235 

feebled force. There is no need, in most cases, tliat 
it should be otherwise. More feeling than is 
needed to produce right action is unnecessary. 
God be thanked that we are not allowed to see all 
the plague of our own hearts ! 



There is no mercy nor pardon for any man who 
does not feel himself utterly helpless and lost. A 
hoj)eless sinner is the only one who has reason to 
hope for forgiveness. If a man comes to Christ 
asking onJy a little help, thinking that he can patch 
himself up with that, without the humiliating con- 
fession of utter un worthiness, he will get nothing. 



There are materials enough in every man's mind 
to create a hell there. 



When my head, that is worth so little, aches, I 
feel it to be unspeakable relief that I may lay it 
upon his breast whose head is worth so much. 
God's head never aches. He does not have to 
study. He sees — sees the naked soul of every 
creature. When the apostle says to the Jews that 
the word of God is quick and powerful, etc., he 
brings to their mind the idea of the priest's exam- 
ination of the sacrificial victims. The Hebrew 
priests not only examined each animal externally, 



236 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

but they also took the beast and split him open at 
the back bone, and made a minute investigation 
into his internal state, before he was offered. This 
habit was the foundation of the form of expression 
in the verse ; ^ and then the apostle goes on to say, 
that before God every creature is laid open, as the 
sacrificial beast was before the priest. The argu- 
ment which he draws in these verses seems at a 
first view to be a strange one; but the apostle 
always speaks from depths Vv^hich the world knows 
not how to sound. God's perfect knowledge of us, 
of all our countless interlacing thoughts, of the 
checkered play of all our passions, of all our acts 
and motives, of the very darkest and foulest pits 
and crevices down to the very bottom of our souls. 
The idea of his escapeless gaze, why it seems terri- 
ile^ if we think of him only from the standpoint 
of our sins; but when we begin to consider his 
perfect love, and his perfect honor, that he has 
known us from everlasting, even as he knows 
us now, and that he is never surprised (as we are 
ourselves) at anything we do, but has sworn to give 
us everlasting life, and to cleanse us from all un- 
righteousness, if we only trust to him, we can begin 
to understand that, hecaitse he knows us, we may 
come holclly to his footstool for help in every time of 
trouble. I think it is not safe or best for us to give 

* Heb. iv. 11 et seg. 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 237 

unreserved confidence to any human friend, liov> 
ever dear, for none are always altogether noble and 
unselfish, none that will not in some way, or at 
some time, abuse such confidence. The power of 
hiding ourselves from each other is most mercifully 
given, for men are wild beasts, and they would 
devour and destroy each other but for this protec- 
tion. But into the ear of God we may pour out 
each secret — our very self, and the confidence will 
be kept sacred. He invites our confidence, not 
because he does not already know all that we can 
tell him, but for our own sake he bids us pour out 
our souls to him, and he will, in return for our con- 
fidences, give us pity and consolation ; for he can 
be touched with a feeling for our infirmities. 



We look on men, and judge them; but it is not 
right — we see but the outward appearance. I meet 
a man with a face so hard and grim, and an eye so 
cold, that I thank God that I do not live with that 
man. But if I could see the path by which he has 
come up to where he now is — if I could see how he 
leaned with all the weight of a once generous and 
confiding heart, on what failed him in time of need 
— if I could see how he has been stood from under, 
and been pierced and bored, and the very life-blood 
of his affections pressed out by a thousand troubles 



238 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

and crosses, aud perhaps by the infernal machi- 
nery of the hoiisehold^ I should feel more like 
throwing my arms about him, and trying to console 
him for all that had made him what he is. 

Whatever there is in election and reprobation — 
and I don't know lohat there is in them, therefore 
I never preach them, for I will not preach what I 
cannot at all understand — there certainly is nothing 
that hinders any man from gaining salvation. 
When Z undertake to preach election, I turn to the 
last chapter of the Bible, and read : '' And the 
Spirit and the Bride say come," etc. It is the last 
utterance of the sacred volume, and it is sincere. 
If I doubted God's perfect sincerity and simplicity, 
in such invitations, I should say that those who 
worshipped him were the sinners, and those who 
refused to pay him homage were the saints. I 
think the doctrines of the Bible are like flowers 
that are in the morning all covered with spiders' 
webs. They are obscured and mystified by mis- 
creant theological spiders. There is nothing so 
simple that these men will not change it into a 
mystery, which they themselves, nor any who hear 
or study them, shall be able to understand. 



A MAN who impoverishes his soul for the sake of 
worldly gain, is like one who, desiring to learn to 



If 



LIVING W0KD3 FFwOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 239 

play upon a harj), tears out all its strings, where- 
with to pay for his tuition. He gains gold, per- 
haps, but when it is his, he has left to him no capa- 
city to enjoy it. 

Perfection has usually been understood to mean 
absence of evil, but it does not mean that any more 
than absence of weeds means harvest. 

The Bible measure of perfection is the measure 
of the fullness of the stature of Jesus Christ. This 
ought long ago to have settled the much vexed 
question of Christian perfection. Until a man can 
measure himself by Christ, and come up to his 
stature, he must not claim to be perfect, and he 
will not arrive at that fulhiess in this world. Con- 
version is not instant deliverance from all wrong 
tendencies, from all errors and follies, nor even 
from all sins. It is but the heginning of a good 
character. 

There may be instances where men are converted 
into a verj^ high state of righteousness at the out- 
set ; but I know that this is rarely the case. Gene- 
rally, the young convert is but set about, and has 
his way to cut through ten thousand native heart- 
born foes. There are his passions and his appetites 
that for many years have had their own head- 
long will; and tliere are all the selfish instincts; 
there is rampant ju'ido to be subjugated, and tlio 



240 LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPrT. 

work is long and hard. But every man is encou- 
raged to work hopefully by the command : " Work 
out your own salvation with fear and trembling ; 
for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and 
to do of his own good pleasure." Let no hard, 
fault-finding man of the v/orld look upon the 
Christian when he fails or falls, and say, "He is 
no Christian else he would do better than that." 
He will often fall and fail; but he must always rise 
again, and with renewed courage and faith go for- 
ward working out his own salvation. He never 
need despair, for God worketh in him, and that is 
strength enough for anything. 

There are some men who have not much native 
strength or stability of character, and though while 
they are out of the way of trial they walk well, 
when they are among the every-day influences of 
life, they are drawn far from what they know to be 
right. Here in church, where there is prayer and 
singing, they feel all right, and are sure that they 
are very near to heaven ; they are inspired by the 
spirit of the place, and feel melted wdtli love and 
devotion. But to-morrow they go over to New 
York. They don't hear many hymns there. Reli- 
gion is not much the subject of conversation and 
consideration over there ; it is all sharpness, shrewd- 
ness, warding off, grasping, stocks, money-market, 
etc. ; and the man goes with the hurrying, hasty 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 24:1 

tide. Selfishness, duplicity, greed, are about him 
and within him, and so he wanders from the way 
and does a hundred wrong things. But by and 
by is his meeting evening ; and among his church 
brethren the wavering man sits down to hear of 
Jesus and of duty, and of the experiences of 
others. The same nature that caused him to go so 
wrong when among those whose influence was 
wrong, now draws him another way. A brother 
rises and gives utterance to some touching thought, 
the man is broken down at once ; tears stream 
down his cheeks, his heart swells, he must rise and 
speak — he sings with his brethren, and his face 
shines with inward happiness. He feels very good 
again ; and, for the time, he is as sincere as any- 
thing can be ; but the world looks on and cries, 
" Look at him ! he is an old knave and hypocrite." 
He is no more a hypocrite than a thermometer is. 
It may indeed he that he is not a Christian. He 
whose feet are upon the Eock of Ages should stand 
more firmly than this ; but he is sincere. 



There are many Christians who in their alFec- 
tions are thoroughly submissive. When they suflTer 
there they grow more sweet and humble — their 
trials make them better. Tliougli their afiectioDs 
are deep and tender they bow before God when he 

L 



242 LIVING WOKDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

touches their hearts iu them, and they say and feel 
that he does all things well, and that he is blessed ; 
but yon take these same men and trouble them in 
their business, and where is their Christian submis- 
sion then? — apparently they are no better than 
infidels. They have not educated themselves to 
yield their wills to the will of God in their husiness 
affairs; afflictions there cause them, as it seems, to 
grow worse and worse all the time. 



At first it is sufficient that the Christian believes 
the truths of the Gospel because they are in the 
Bible, given by the Spirit of God. 

When first the traveller follows the direction of 
the guide-board, he does so because it says that is 
the way to go ; but when he has gone that way 
once, and again, and finds that it always ends 
just where he intended to stop, he looks at the 
guide-board no more. He has forgotten it, for he 
does not need it now. He believes in the road, be- 
cause he knows by experience that it will lead him 
whither he desires to go. 

Thus should the Christian, of ten or a score of 
years, believe in the vital truths of religion, not 
alone because Christ declares them, but because 
he has felt and known them in his own heart and 
life. Faith is first, but afterwards is actual know- 
ledge — we do '^Jcnow of the doctrine." 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 243 

Many persons have read the Bible so much that 
to them it has come to have very little practical 
force or meaning. A man will read aloud the pas- 
sage on " charity," or " love," as it should be ren- 
dered, and not an echo of its meaning will be in his 
heart. He will read it reverently, as he thinks a 
Christian man should, and will then arise and begin 
straightway to be not ^^ long suffering" nor '* kind;" 
not to bear all things, believe all things, or hope all 
things ; not to think no evil ; but to ie " easily pro- 
voked," and to behave unseemly, without one pass- 
ing thought that what he has just read should have 
aught to do with his daily lite among his associates. 
This scripture is thus a dead letter. 



If you desire a new church which will accommo- 
date six thousand people, if you will raise the full 
amount required for its erection and furnishing, I 
will engage to speak in it so that all shall hear me. 
I will do my part in the contribution also ; but I 
tell you beforehand, that I will have nothing to do 
with building a church, or with preaching in it, of 
which, when it is finished, even the poorest work- 
man can truly say, as he stands and looks upon it, 
'^Ilostby that job." 

If you will have such a building forme to preach 
in, no man, from the largest contractor down to 



244: LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

the poorest laborer that carries a hod, must be 
able to say that he lost a single penny by the enter- 
prise. Money sufficient to pay to each man what 
is just and right must be raised, or the matter must 
be dropped quicker than it was taken up. As to 
my being able to speak so as to be heard in any 
part of such a building as you contemplate, I should 
think you might be satisfied of that by the way in 
which I am speaking now. 



Men are agreed in this, that all do glory in' some- 
thing. Each one glories according to his society. 
The honesty and gentleness, the truth and guileless- 
heartedness, which are the glory of the true gentle- 
man, would render a man the mark for scorn and 
contempt among burglars, and gamblers, and alder- 
men, and other thieves. 



We are not to try to crush out any quality. If 
we put a ball through the head of a wild young 
horse, he will be made quiet and harmless enough ; 
but he will be good for nothing. The right way is 
to break him, and harness him ; then he will be fit 
for use. Just so it is with the faculties of a man's 
mind. They all need breaking, harnessing, and 
right directing; but they must not be killed or 



LIVINO WORDS FROM PLrMOUTH PULPIT. 245 

maimed. That faculty whose perversion becomes 
pride is the gift of God, and he has given directions 
for its proper action. '' Let him that glorieth glory 
in this^ that he understandeth and knoweth me." 
To ''glory" means to value one's self; to feel self- 
complacenc}^, because of some real or fancied supe- 
riority. But we are forbidden to glory in anything 
except in our knowledge of God. 

How far do men come from obedience to this in- 
junction ! They glory in everything hut that. 
One walks the streets with such an air that you 
would say he supposes that God had fashioned 
a very masterpiece when he fashioned him — yet 
no ; it is not even his body that he so much glories 
in, as in the things which he has stuck on to it. 
He glories in his dress, and in his perfumes. 
Another glories in his muscular form, in his fine 
proportions, and in his strength. He goes thix)ugh 
the streets almost wishing that some one would 
come at him that he might display his power of 
self-defence. The pride of these men lies in the 
things which they possess in common with the 
beasts of the field. But others glory in their riches 
and their skill ; others again in their genius. 
These things are not to be despised. Even riches 
God reckons as good ; for they are among the re- 
wards promised to those who diligently serve him. 
Beauty and attractiveness of person, and the pos 



246 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

session of winning manners have this much in them : 
they are the gift of God; they give pleasure to 
others, and ought to do so to their owners. They 
should be a cause of gratitude, but never of '' glory- 
ing." It is a sort of organic affectation with some to 
pretend to despise personal symmetry and beauty. 

"Wealth, in the economy of Providence is made a 
powerful means of civilization, and it is right to 
value it, in its place. It is good, sometimes it is 
even grand, to know how to fill the day with 
profitable transactions, to make every movement 
tell for the advancement of some one enterprise ; 
but men should not glory in their business or exe- 
cutive force of skill, or in their sharp foresighted- 
ness. They should glory in this that they under- 
stand and know the Lord. 

Perhaps there may be men now before me who 
are saying: "I have valued myself all wrong — 
God help me — I will try to benefit by this dis- 
course ;" and perhaps some man will go home and 
make a note in his journal to the effect that his 
heart was touched, and he resolved to do differ- 
ently for the future. Monday morning he will rise, 
and as he starts for the city he will say to himself: 
" Now, TememberP As he walks towards the ferry, 
a quick step sounds behind him, and a laughing 
voice says, as he gets a friendly slap on the shoul- 
der : " Ah ! ah ! but that was a capital hit of yours 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 247 

' — that mortgage, you know — I've heard all about 
it. But didn't you trip that fellow's heels up well ? 
I declare ; it was capital." 

"No! you didn't hear about it, though, did 
you !" 

The man is instantly as full of vain glory as 
champagne is full of bubbles. Sunday and its im- 
pressions are forgotten ; the week is here ; his good 
resolves are gone — 'where the bubbles go. That 
one compliment in regard to an act of wicked 
shrewdness, has shot him all through of infernal 
electricity, and he is a tusiness man until the next 
Sunday. In what does that man glory ? 

As we ascend in the ranks of humanity, we won- 
der on what the great thinkers, the great inventors, 
the painters, the poets, the orators, and architects, 
most valued themselves. We think we should like 
to know what Shakspeare, that great student of 
iiuman nature, thought of " the immortal Will," 
when he, in turn, arose before him, as probably he 
did — and we think it would be grand to know what 
Dante and old Homer valued most in themselves. 
Then our thoughts, still lifting themselves, look on 
the angels, and wonder what is their self-estimate. 
We tremble as we approach God, and hardly dare 
to wish to hear in what he glories. He, infinitely 
above all things that are created, the architect of 
ell architects. Why, St. Peter's is a mere rat-hole 



248 LIVING WOEDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

compared to the smallest worlds that God flings 
from his fingers faster than sparks fly from the black- 
smith's anvil; but he has told us in what he glories : 
and first and- chiefest is his "loving kindness." 
l^ot merely kindness — it is a compound word. 
There are ten thousand kindnesses that have in them . 
not one spark of love ; but that word, " loving," has 
a personal meaning — it shows us that there is the 
tie of affection between us and our Creator. God 
glories in his " loving kindness, his judgment, and 
his righteousness," and man should glory in under- 
btanding and trying to imitate the same. 

I think it would be a good sermon for a man to 
take pen and paper and write down, first, all the 
things in which he does glory ; next, the things in 
which he ought to glory ; and then an indiscrimi- 
nate list of his acts, and thoughts, and plans, and 
wishes. But I think it would be easier to induce 
men to go alone, at midnight, and in the dark, into 
the charnel-house, and drive a nail into a coffin, 
after the manner of the superstition of some, than 
to go down into the depths of their own selves, and 
write out truly, with real judgment writing, what 
there they would see. 



Coin that is current in one place, is valueless in 
another. Suppose an Indian, far in the western 



LIVING WOKDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 249 

wilds, were to say, '^ I will become a trader with 
the whites. I will go to New York city and buy 
up half the goods there, and come back and sell 
them, and then what a rich Indian I shall be." He 
then collects all his wampum beads, which are his 
money ; and compared with other Indians he is very 
rich, and away he journeys to yonder city. Im- 
agine him going into Stewart's, and offering his 
wampum there, in exchange for their goods. They 
are refused. They were money in the woods — ^in 
the city they are worthless. And there are thou- 
sands of men who are carrying with them, to offer 
at the judgment, what is no better than the Indian's 
beads. They are reckoning on their generosity, 
their prompt payment of all their debts, their vari- 
ous good natural qualities ; but when they present 
them, they will all be found worthless trash. The 
things that have made them strong, and valued, 
and important here, will there be worse than use- 
less to them. 



Critics say that Eaphael's transfiguration trans- 
gresses the rules of art. It is two pictures in one. 
Christ is represented upon the mountain top, in his 
glory, the disciples having fallen, in wonder and awe, 
to the earth ; beneath this scene is the one of the 
possessed cliild, about whom the horror-stricken dis- 
ciples stand, unable to afford relief. AVith the 



250 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

merit or fault of this double representation I have 
nothing to do ; all that I know is this, that picture 
is a figure of human life. Above, Christ often 
hovers in glorious light ; while below, the devil is 
tearing the child. 



What a man is, is not what he is on Sunday, 
when the organist plays to him, and the minister 
plays to him, and all good influences play to him; 
but it is what he is in the week-day, when his life 
is wearing, and working, and weaving for him the 
garment in which he is to stand and be judged. 



Many that are last shall be first, and the first 
shall be last. There are men whose entrance into 
Wall street is like the appearance of blue sky after 
a northeast storm. They move along, leaving a 
trail of bows and smiles, and heartburnings and 
envy behind them. How the sallow faces light up 
as old Moneybags approaches. He is pointed after. 
" Do you know him ? A wonderful man ! — worth 
his millions — smart as lightning," etc. That old 
obese abomination of money is their god ; and yet 
there is not one particle of genuine worth in him. 
He has utterly defiled and destroyed his manhood 
in the manufacturing of wealth ; he is a great 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PDLPIT. 251 

epitomized, circulating hell on earth, and when he 
dies, hell will groan — one more woe. 

But there are other men — they are seen some- 
times; business-men say of them: ''Oh, yes, we 
know them — clever fellows enough — mean very 
well — do some good among the poor — have classes 
in mission schools, etc. They are just suited for 
that ; but, bless your life ! there might be a million 
such men in the world, and nothing would ever be 
done." 

These men die, and heaven rings with new shouts 
of melody. There they are known and waited for, 
and with triumphant joy are welcomed home. 



The artist, when he begins to learn to draw, 
linds the greatest difficulty in making straight lines 
and circles, but when he has coaxed the juice of his 
brain down into his fingers, so that they think, he 
has but to give one glance at the object he desires 
to represent, and the lines appear, the circles fly ofl' 
from his fingers, and the picture is drawn, almost 
without thought. Thus involuntary should be 
right-doing with the Christian. He should form for 
himself a settled habit, a sort of refined, spiritual 
instinct, by which he should be led constantly and 
almost unconsciously, to shun the evil, and to 
choose the good. 



262 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Christian men, what testimony does your life 
yield to your sons? Is it that religion, your duty 
to God, has the first place in your regard, and busi- 
ness success the subordinate place? Or is your 
practical life (I do not say your theoretic life, that 
is more frequently right), such as to cause them to 
conclude that you think religion a good thing, but 
that a man must succeed in business, anyhow, and 
after that he ought to ser^e God as well as he can. 



Some men have pronounced the rebukes of con- 
science to be the punishment for sin. I marvel 
how they can reason thus ; or I should marvel if I 
did so at anything in man. Either all is marvellous 
in him, or nothing is. 

But can any reasonable being believe that the 
Creator would institute a punishment which should 
deal most severely with the smallest sins, and least 
severely with the greatest? AYould God decreee 
that the worst man should bear least punishment, 
and the best man most ? Yet look at facts, and 
deny not that this is the way in which conscience 
punishes. Everybody knows that it is the first and 
least sins that are most soundly scourged by this 
feeling. It is in proportion as a man is pure that 
his sins afflict him. It is at the 'beginning of a 
wrong course that we run against the spears, that 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 253 

we kick against tke pricks, that we are excoriated. 
When a man is in the deeper places of guilt, he is 
generally far more comfortable than he was before 
he had descended so low. How can any one ima- 
gine that the Almighty would contrive such a 
miserable, one-sided mode of punishment ? 



Repentance is not feeling bad about your sins, 
or talking humbly about them, or calling yourself 
hard names, or thinking that you are the greatest 
of sinners, or writing in your journal about your 
depravity, or praying, or going forward to the anx- 
ious seat ; it is turning from your si7is to righteous- 
ness. When you feel bad enough to do that, it is 
sufficient. More feeling is useless, and often dan- 
gerous. It is this firing up of feeling which causes 
most of the mischief complained of in revivals. 
There is no merit in deep feeling. It is no credit 
to a man that God was obliged to shake him over 
fire and brimstone to make him a convert. Turn — 
blessed are they who, the moment they are made 
to see that they are sinners, and are lost without 
the Saviour, go straight to him, without waiting to 
be lashed thither — such are the best conversions — 
such are the most noble natures. But some have 
presented God and his law in such a way, as to 
ofi*end against all of taste, generosity, and manli- 



254 LIVING WOKDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

ness— I had almost said against every affection thei'e 
is in man ; and then they call the stirring that 
there is within against this view of God the rebel- 
lion of the natural heart, and they teach that there 
must now be a pitched battle between God and the 
soul — God saying, " You shall submit," and the 
soul declaring, '^I won't;" until, finally, when 
driven to the very verge of perdition, by the thun- 
ders of the law, the soul turns short about and 
hastens to God — rather than fall into hell. There 
may be, there are, experiences like this, but they 
are not the rule, they are not needful — at least not 
to many. In my office of pastor, I am often called 
upon to talk with persons who are in trouble, 
because they think they were converted too easy, 
or because they never had such times as Payson 
had, when he had dyspepsia, and fasted, and had 
horrible views of '^ the exceeding sinfulness of 
sin." " If I was really converted, why was I not 
converted just as Brother A. was? If conversion 
is the work of God, it will be alike, won't it? 
There will be no mistaking it." 

Men are the work of God — did ever you see two 
men who were in all respects exactly alike ? God's 
taste evidently does not choose uniformity. 

Two ships come into IsTew York harbor. One 
has crossed the ocean with a favoring breeze. She 
had all sails set, everything below and aloft spread 



i 



LIYIXG WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 255 

to the pleasant wind, and not one hindrance was in 
her way. But another soon enters, and everybody 
hastens to board her. The captain of the fortunate 
craft is one of the first to greet his brother captain : 
" How came you in such a plight ? Did you 
have a storm?" he says. *• Storm!'' repeats the 
other, ''I guess we did. I've been upon the ocean 
forty years (you know with captains the last storm 
is the worst that they ever saw), and I never saw a 
time like the one we've just passed — we've been near 
foundering a dozen times. We've lost our top- 
masts and our bowsprit, our sails are torn into rib- 
bons, our bulwarks are stove in, we've lost our 
boats ; I've lost all I had, and my men are nearly 
worn out. It has been hurricanes one side or 
another all the way across, and we have but just 
got into port alive." The captain of the uninjured 
ship goes back to her decks and says, dubiously, 
shaking his head: *• AYell, boys, I begin to doubt 
whether we really are in ]S"ew York, after all. It 
can't be that we have crossed the ocean, we never 
had any experience like thatP 



Never did a summer pass that did not smite on 
the storehouse of autumn, and cause it to open its 
doors and brino; forth of its abundant treasures. 



256 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

There was a time when honesty, truth and fair- 
ness of general behavior were the chief things that 
religious teachers insisted upon; and men almost 
forgot that Christianity had any inner life ; but the 
reaction came, and to this external religion arose 
an opposition. The defrauded faculties asserted 
their claim, and now was the era of intense spiritual 
devotees, who taught that there might be a true 
and vital Christianity in a man's heart, distinct 
from, and independent of, his outward life and con- 
duct. It was faith and works at war with each 
other, and religiously bombarding each other with 
texts; instead of walking hand in hand in holy 
union. There is no way in which a man can 
prove that he has true faith in his heart, except 
by good works in his life 



Many persons suppose that there is required, in 
order to a man's satisfactory conviction that he is a 
child of God, a vivid and unmistakaMe assurance 
of faith. They think that the heart is as wax, and 
like inert wax they suppose it lies, until the Lord 
takes his signet ring or seal, and stamps it with his 
name. Then, after feeling that impression, the soul 
is certain of its son-ship. It may wander away, 
and the name may be covered from sight by ten 
thousand faults and sins, but down beneath them 
all, it is there^ and it cannot be erased. Now this 



LIVING- WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 257 

is not the way in which the Spirit of God usually 
bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons 
of God. Without doubt there is immediate actual 
contact of God's Spirit with the spirit of man, 
whenever this is best; but ordinarily all our expe- 
riences are made to come to us through the medium 
of our own natural states ; through the influences 
of things around us, and within us. Anything 
that produces in the mind the reasonable, sober 
conviction that we are his, is the true witness of 
God's Spirit with ours. The evidences of a man's 
Christianity (if he is a Christian) are not so diffi- 
cult and serious a matter as men think. Why, any 
one who has sense sufficient to judge whether he is 
a good citizen or not, or whether he is the affec- 
tionate son of his own parents, can tell whether he 
is a child of God. ''If ye love me ya will keep 
my commandments." " Ah !" you sigh, '' but 1 
don't always keep them." AVell, ask that little 
child how he knows that he loves his parents ; he 
will answer you, '• Because I love to do what they 
want me to do." '' Why, my dear child, you are 
always doing what they donH want you to do. You 
can't prove your love to them by that rule." The 
poor child hangs its head, and says, '* I don't know 
as I can." He cannot answer you. You ask again, 
" My child, how do you hioio that you love your 
parents?" ''Why, why I do love to please them 



258 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

better than anything else in the world." ''Ah! 
but I have just shown you that you do not always 
try to please them ; how can you say that this is 
your proof of love to them?" The . child, is 
silenced ; but in his little heart he knows that in 
spite of his disobedience he does desire to do his 
parents' will ; and that he does love them, whether 
he perfectly obeys them or not. He thinks, per- 
haps, " I am a poor child, a hard child to makiage ; 
I give them a great deal of trouble, but I love 
them ; I am their own child after all. They would 
never give me up ; and nothing on earth could take 
me from them." 

Faith is the life of a child, and that is why the 
Saviour declares, "Except ye become as little 
children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of 
heaven." When, therefore, you examine yourself 
by the rule of obedience, and find that you are not 
perfect there, see if it is your greatest desire to 
honor Christ by keeping his commandments, and 
if you are trying to do so ; and if it is the grief 
and pain of your life that you fail as you do. If 
you wish, more than anything else, to be his ; if 
you yearn to have him for your friend ; if you feel 
that you must and will telong to him or to nohody, 
you need no more remarkable " witness." If you 
were not his before, you are so now ; so enjoy him 
afresh — His sweet making love again. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 259 

Suppose one of the sheep in a fold were to go to 
the shepherd, and say, ''I think I'm your sheep, 
because you get six pounds of wool off me ;" and 
another should say, ''And I think I'm your sheej^, 
because you get four pounds of wool from me ;" 
and a third, " I hope I am your sheep, but I don't 
know, for you only get three pounds of wool from 
me ; and sometimes it is but two." Finally, sup- 
pose one poor scraggy fellow comes who don't know 
whether he is a sheep or a goat, and makes his 
complaint ; the shepherd would say, " I know who 
are the best sheep, and who are the worst. I wish 
you could all give me ten pounds of wool ; but 
whether you give me ten pounds or one, you are 
all mine. I bought you, and paid for you, and you 
are all in my fold, and you every one belong to 
me." It is not how much a sheep brings his owner 
which proves him his. The proof that the sheep 
belongs to the shepherd is, that the shepherd 
bouocht him and takes care of him. 



The main thing is to be determined to go towards 
heaven. If the man resolutely aims for that place, 
he will not fail to reach it in the end, however 
much he may wander off his track ; pushed this way 
and that by temptations. The most unskillful navi- 
gator may gain the port for which he steers, even 



260 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

though his course across the sea be zigzag, if 
every time he takes the sun he comes back to his 
course, and perseveres in his endeavors to gain his 
desired haven. He may justly say : " Though I am 
a bungler, and a very poor navigator, I am no 
smuggler, no pirate; I work hard to gain my 
port, and I believe that I shall gain it in safety." 
Thus the Christian often is constrained to cr}^ out : 
'' Lord, thou knowest that I mean to hold an even 
course towards thee ; but thou knowest, also, how I 
am pushed off here by wrong impulses, and drawn 
off there by vain desires — ^how pride, and vanity, 
and selfishness impede my way ; and how often my 
appetites and passions trip up my feet, and cast me 
to the earth. Yet I will come back to the path. I 
do desire to keep it. The settled and deliberate 
resolve and aspiration of mj soul is to walk in the 
way of thy commandments." 



When I was at Fall Eiver, I was obliged to rise 
at four o'clock in the morning to take the train. I 
took my carpet-bag in my hand and ran, but was in 
trouble lest I might be running directly from the 
cars instead of towards them. There was not a pei- 
son in sight; but I saw a light in one upper 
window. A watcher was there. I rang the bell, 
and asked information as to my way. It was given. 



LIYINO WOEDS FKO:^! PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 261 

I was about right — only needed a little help ; and 
now, knowing that I was in the right way, I did 
run. A bird might have counted it doing well to 
keep up with me ; for 1 expected every moment to 
hear the bell, and the rushing off of the train, and 
then I should be there and my people without a 
sermon for Sunday. Only let me be sure that 
I was in the right way, and I was willing to run. 
So says the Christian : " Only let me be sure that I 
am on my way to heaven, and there is nothing that 
I am not willing to do or to bear." 

Well, if you are so earnest, know that Christ is 
the way ; and if you are desirous to cast away all 
that shall hinder your race, I think you need not 
doubt that you are already in it. 



There is nothing on earth better than a good 
woman ; and there is nothing on earth worse than a 
wicked one. The nature of a true, pure-hearted 
woman is lifted up until it well-nigh touches that 
of angels; but the nature of a bad woman strikes 
beneath, until her roots are fed by the fiery sap of 
hell. 



There are some things that money cannot buy. 
The spot of land where your child lies buried, 
could it buy that ? Or the last letter or gift of the 
best friend that you ever had on earth? 



262 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Ahab was just sucli a man as would have done to 
appoint governors for Kansas. He could cause the 
doing of mean and wicked acts, and yet not know 
anything about them. He was not responsible for 
the murder of l^aboth — of course not — how should 
he know what his wife intended ? He knew that 
she had promised him the vineyard ; and he knew 
that when she had determined to give it to him, it 
v/as already as good as his. He was aware, also, 
that the woman who was thus pledged to oblige 
him knew no law which could stand a moment 
against her desires. Resolute, crafty, cruel, not 
" hard faced ;" for she was, probably, very beauti- 
ful, she marched straight on to the accomplishment 
of her purposes, whatever might be trampled under 
her feet in her way. But he gave no orders ; he 
merely said : " There is my desk, Jezebel ; there 
is my pen, my papers, and my signet ; use them 
as you choose. Of course, you will do nothing 
wrong." Imagine the two to look at each other 
just here. '' Of course^ Jezebel, you will do no- 
thing wrong." 

ISTo doubt Naboth might have had twice the 
worth of his vineyard had he chosen to sell it. He 
might have had a great deal better land, and have 
raised three times as many grapes. But he knew 
that there were some crops raised on his farm which 
he could get nowhere else. The larger yield of 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. -263 

grapes raiglit be very well in their way ; but be, 
beneath the trees and the vines under which his 
fathers had for generations sat, and where, beside 
his mother, he had sported when a child, and where 
his brothers and sisters were born, could drink 
sweeter nectar out of airy cups, than all the juice 
of grapes ever pressed upon the hills of Samaria. 
Naboth was right to hold on to his home. There 
were garnered memories that all the wealth of 
Ahab could not buy. 

But Jezebel wrote her letters to the elders and to 
the nobles of her kingdom — to the " Elders and the 
Nobles P^ — and she ordered them to proclaim a 
fast. When people meditate a deed of wickedness 
particularly atrocious, they often feel that they had 
better have a fast first. What devout men those 
'' Elders " must have been ! and how noble those 
'' Nobles !" How acceptable to God must such 
fasts be ! And they set ISTaboth on high among the 
people, and the false witnesses were found ; no 
trouble about that, when the queen commanded it, 
and the good man was di-agged out and stoned, and 
dogs licked his blood. Well ! Naboth deserved 
his fate — he was " an agitator." He agitated the 
king ; he would not let him have his vineyard for a 
kitchen garden ; and Ahab was so agitated about it 
il;; that he couldn't eat his dinner ; and that agitated 
Jezebel very much. She did not like to see the 



2G4 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

king rolled over on the bed, like a great baby, with 
his face to the wall. And they were '' the govern- 
ment " — so ISTaboth was an agitator of the govern- 
ment of his country ; and he deserved stoning. 

When this agitator was dead, Ahab went down 
to take possession of the coveted vineyard, which, 
as its owner had died as a criminal, lapsed from his 
heirs to the crown. 

As the king was complacently viewing his prize, 
lo ! there stood before him, the first growth of this 
desired garden, sprung to full size in one night — the 
prophet who was sent to pronounce to the wicked 
monarch his doom. 

" In the place where the dogs licked the blood of 
IsTaboth shall dogs lick thy blood — even tJiine — and 
the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the walls of Jezreel." 
And this was literally fulfilled ; for they were soon 
after miserably slain and dog eaten. When Ahab 
and Jezebel laid their plans, and executed their 
wickedness, they had forgotten God. Men do so 
still. Because he that sitteth in the heavens keeps 
quiet, they think that he is not regarding ; but he 
is. Poor Kaboth may have felt that the Lord 
knew not his wrongs and his distress, but we see 
how that was. And we see, too, by this account, 
how God looks upon the unrighteous actions caused 
by the hands of agents. Ahab was not going to 
hold himself accountable for the results of what Je- 



1 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 265 

zebel, his agent, chose to do. God, however, held 
him to a strict account. Eetribution has a long 
arm ; it reaches down through many years, and it 
is a sheriff from which there is no escape, however 
skillfully we may dodge all others. Thousands and 
ten thousands of men, would they speak out their 
secret convictions, would say that the very wicked- 
ness upon which they had built their highest hopes 
of worldly prosperity and happiness was the open- 
ing of the pit which whelmed them in destruction. 

We must not too sharply blame the elders and 
the nobles for their part in this matter. They were 
but obeying the law. They did not want to trouble 
their minds, or endanger their interests, about the 
wild and romantic notions of "the higher law." 
As good citizens they must obey the requirements 
of government. 

This is exactly what was done in our country at 
the time of the enactment of the fugitive slave law, 
and there were not wanting efforts to induce the 
clergy to exhort the people to submit to the law's 
requirements, and to aid in its enforcement. 

The young ministers were very refractory ; but 
there were numbers of the old, and hitherto respect- 
ed and honorable clergymen, who were prevailed 
upon to aid in trying to cloak that enormous ini- 
quity. They did not cloak it ; they only uncloaked 
themselves. 

M 



266 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Daniel Webster stooped to influence these men 
to this step, both by letters and by personal address, 
and it was taken. When our own elders advocate 
the enforcement of this manner of government, why 
should we bear too severely upon the elders who 
procured the death of Naboth ? 



It is not worth while for any one who is yet 
young, who has not yet soiled virtue, or honesty, or 
manly honor, to try the effect of doing so. Young 
men, be true to virtue, be honest, be religious, so 
shall you have j)eace in your later years. 



A Christiak, just born into the kingdom, is often 
like a loaf of bread when its materials are just put 
together. The baker has mixed them, and left the 
bread to rise. You go to the dough and say, " Are 
you bread?" "]^o," says the dough, "I am not." 
In an hour you go again and ask, "Are you bread ?" 
" ITo, I am not," replies the dough ; " I feel a little 
stirring " (said witli a rising of the shoulders) " in 
me, but I am not bread," In two hours more you 
try, "Are you bread now?" "N"o," is still the 
reply, " I'm sponge ; but not bread. I'm not 
baked, nor eaten yet." But by and by, after the 
baker gives it the final kneading, and it is ready 
for the oven, when it is haked^ it owns that now it 



I 



LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 267 

is really bread. Yet it has gained no new element 
since the first mixing. The kingdom of heaven in 
the heart is like leaven which a woman hid in a 
measm-e of meal until the whole was leavened. 



It has been said that a statesman will not soil his 
hands by doing the vile and dirty work that is de- 
manded by the present system of politics ; bnt that 
he keeps for his use persons who are not squeamish 
as to what they do, so long as they are well paid 
for it. But the story of Ahab tells how that sort of 
management is dealt with by the Lord. 

There are men in these cities known as abolition- 
ists who, when occasion calls for it, shut their eyes 
and bid their southern agent do the best he can for 
them. They say, " I must do business ; and I can't 
afibrd to lose ten thousand dollars by my southern 
customers. 'Tis a bad afi*air5 no doubt. Don't let 
me hear a word about it. Here, I leave the matter 
with you. Do the best you can for me. I wash my 
hands of the whole husinessr 

Ah ! it's rather difficult getting that sort of stain 
off. I tell you, the pious merchant, seated in his 
slippers comfortably by his Sunday fire, reading his 
religious paper, while his agent at the South is sell- 
iug men, women, and children, body and soul too 



268 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

often, is held accountable for all the wrong, disaster 
and misery thus caused. 

Don't you believe it? I appeal to God's judg- 
ment bar ; and we will take up the subject and de- 
bate it again there. 

Any dishonest deed done by the most extensive 
and respected firm — the making out of false bills 
of sale — the giving in of wrong invoices at the 
custom-house — no matter if these things be done 
by the hand of the greenest clerk or the last and 
smallest boy employed in the business, will be reck- 
oned for, first and most rigorously^ with the first in 
power in that firm. 

Ah ! there is a great deal of craft and cunning 
among men — they are very shrewd and subtile, 
and can go far and long in artifice and duplicity ; 
but God is a match for them all. 



A GREEDY man is not long in growing covetous, 
and when the grasping and avaricious passions be- 
come swollen and inflamed, there is always danger 
that they will break out into some deeds of deeper 
wickedness. He who finds himself feeling sorry 
that another's house is larger and better, or that 
his prospects in life are fairer than his own, may 
be sure that the worst form of envy is upon him ; 
before he knows it, he will covet that which is 



LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 269 

another's ; and then he will be in perpetual danger 
of committing crime, in order to obtain it. The 
more he looks at what he wants, the more he will 
want it ; which is always the case with ns when we 
want what we must not have. It is right to wish to 
have good things like those owned by our neigh- 
bors, if we can make fair trade for them ; and if our 
neighbor is willing to sell that which is his, we 
have a right to wish for and purchase that ; but our 
desire must go no further than this. The moment 
we cherish a desire to get from him that with which 
he does not wish to part, we sin. The desire, cher- 
ished, to steal makes a man a thief. 



When an old man, who has spent seventy long 
years in this world, who has seen almost the whole 
of life, and is trembling on the very verge of the 
grave, comes at last to the Saviour, drawn by that 
gracious Spirit that will save unto the uttermost 
rather than permit the prayers of his saints to be in 
vain, I am glad that his soul is saved — glad for his 
sake — glad for the sake of the parents long ago gone 
home, and glad for the sake of the other faithful 
friends who have prayed scores and scores of years 
for his conversion ; but after all, 'tis a mean busi- 



This giving all the greenness and efflorescence of 



270 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

one's life — all one's strength, and beauty — to the 
devil^ and then, when one has sucked all the plea- 
sures that he can get out of sin and the world, 
coming and offering the dregs of his life — his old 
worn-out corn-husk, to the Lord ! 'tis dirt mean ! 
If any of you young people meditate such a course, 
you will not be likely to be allowed the chance. 



I AM not afraid of a laugh, even in the meeting- 
house, nor on the Sunday, if it come of a right 
spirit. It is often better to laugh than to weep ; 
and to laugh in the very presence of our Maker is 
well, if it be the laughter of Abraham, and not the 
scornful and unbelieving laughter of Sarah. 



, Why is it, when the coffin is unearthed, and that 
which has lain long within it is exposed, and 
when the father and the mother, bending over it 
"with tears and anguish, call tenderly with the soul's 
utmost yearning: "My son! my son!" that the 
dust makes no reply ? Why is not the mouldering 
mass moved ? Why does it make no sign, but only 
the nimble worms creep in and out, and the noi- 
some dust settles closer together? It is because 
the man is dead. 

Why is it, when lover calls to lover to return, 



LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 271 

when the confiding one who has believed in man, 
as she should believe alone ♦in her God, and has 
been rewarded~2<!^ man rewards — pleads with the 
miscreant who has stolen from her her store of love, 
making no requital, when her tear-dimmed eyes 
and quivering lips beseech him, when all her soul 
is poured before him, and she utters her hopeless 
cry in his very ear, does he not pity and regard 
her? It is because the wretch is dead, dead. 
Dead to all that lifts him above the brute ; dead to 
whatever is not earthly, sensual, devilish. And 
God calls to men, he wooes them, he entreats them, 
and they answer not, nor hear, because, as he 
declares, '^ They are dead in trespasses and sins." 



The man who designedly wins the love of a 
woman when he knows that he either cannot or 
ought not fully to requite it — there is not an evil 
thing on the earth or beneath it that is so base a 
knave as he. 



When you come to Christ you must come as an 
offender — you must be sorry for your sins, and per- 
fectly willing to give them all up, or he will never 
receive you. Suppose a man were to strike a child, 
or a sick man, or a feeble woman, everybody would 
cry "shame!" But if he, upon reflection, grew 



272 LIYIISrG WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PtJLPIT. 

ashamed, and went humbly and confessed his fault, 
and tried all in his pQwer to make up for it, men 
would let him up. If, however, the man who struck 
happened to be one of your consistent men, obstinate 
and conceited (whose consistency is not in never do- 
ing wrong, but in never confessing it), he won't re- 
pent, nor atone. He will say, " Well, I did it, and 
it must remainP The world will call that man a 
brute. In these things the judgment of the world 
is that of Christ. 

Suppose a man were to call upon the physician 
and say, " Well, sir, I want your services." 

" Are you sick ?'' says the physician. 

" IsTo ; not that I know of." 

" What, then, do you want of me ?" 

^' Oh ! I want your services." 

"But what for?" 

The man makes no reply. 

" Are you in pain ?" 

"No." 

" Is your head out of order ?" 

"No." 

" Nor your stomach ?" 

" No ; I believe not. I feel perfectly well ; but 
still I thought I should like a little of your help." 

What would a doctor think of such a case as this ? 
What must Christ think of those that ask his help, 
not feeling that they really need it ? 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 273 

The Jews were as pious as people are now-a-days. 
They hated everybody that didn't belong to their 
church. They looked upon the Canaanites just as 
we look on infidels, heathens, and abolitionists. 



I THINK that one reason for my great love for 
trees, and flowers, and birds is, that through the 
gentle ministrations of these things I was taught a 
better way of prayer than any which before I had 
known. I found my way to God stepping on the 
soft green leaves, and lifted by the songs of birds. 



When men complain to me of low spirits, I tell 
them to take care of their health, to trust in the 
Lord, and to do good^ as a cure. 



Man's face is a disturbed face ; it shows that in 
his soul there is no rest, not even in his home. 
Disquiet is with him in the broodings of the night, 
and repose comes not with the flush of morning. 



Attempt to be aristocratic in the church, and the 

church dies. Its true power consists in cutting the 

loaf of society from top to bottom. 
M2 



274 LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Time is to us as a beleaguering army; parallel 
after parallel is drawn around us, and ever and 
anon we see an enemy's flag waving over 
some outwork. Charge after charge is made 
against us ; and as sight, and hearing, and touch, 
fail before the assaulting army, O woe to man if 
he has no hereafter as a final citadel into which to. 
retreat. 



Ask any man and he will tell you, " I expect to 
live again." All men believe it; but this cold 
faith of the head is a different thing from that cer- 
tainty which sometimes thrills through the heart, 
and makes us long for the future life, as a school- 
boy longs for his father's house. 



There is a pass beyond which no man's honor 
can go. Beware the narrow and intense moment 
of the pressure of temptation. 



It is time we were done talking of death as 
" The Great Tyrant," " The Enemy," etc. Death- 
it is only God's call, " Come home." It is but the 
messenger to bring them home sent to homesick 
children at a boarding-school ; or the permission to 
return to his native land sent to an exile. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 275 

Religion is the Bread of Life. I wish we better 
appreciated the force of this expression. I remem- 
ber what bread was to me when I was a boy. I 
could not wait till I was dressed in the morning, 
but ran and cut a slice from the loaf — all the way 
round, too, to keep me until breakfast; and at 
breakfast, if diligence in eating earned wages, I 
should have been well paid. And then I could not 
wait for dinner, but ate again, and then at dinner ; 
and I had to eat again before tea, and at tea, and 
lucky if 1 didn't eat again after that. It was bread, 
bread, all the time with me, bread that I lived on 
and got strength from. Just so religion is the 
bread of life ; but you make it cake — ^you put it 
away in your cupboard and never use it but when 
you have company. You cut it into small pieces 
and put it on china plates, and pass it daintily 
round instead of treating it as bread; common, 
hearty bread, to be used every hour. 



A man's ledger does not tell what he is worth. 
Count wJhat is in a man, not what is on him, if you 
would know whether lie is ricli or poor. 



Love that has no fear of God is always false and 
weak. 



276 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Of all impotent creatures, man is weakest, when 
he attempts by his own strength to put himself 
down. It is ocean trying to put down waves with 
waves. 'No storms are like the storms that rise 
when man attempts to conquer his passions. 



' There are men standing high in the church, their 
hands have borne about the broken bread, and the 
dripping, blood betokening wine to their compan- 
ions. They are careful to observe the Sabbath and 
the prayer-meeting, and do their part well in public, 
stated generosities ; but under all they bear a heart 
that is hard, grasping, avaricious. In the world 
they carry themselves so that they grind and bruise 
all that stands in their way. They are proud, sel- 
fish, supplanting, envious, malicious — they are mean. 
There is no worse word than that. When you have 
descended so low in language, the lottom falls out. 
For such a character as the one I have just de- 
scribed I cannot express my utter contempt and 
loathing. • 

When a man gives proof that his heart is sound, 
and that his life is sound, there is no divergence of 
opinion that should keep us from fellowship with 
him. I am sensitive in behalf of theologies ; but 
when theology puts its hoof upon the living, pal- 
pitating heart, my heart cries out against it. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 277 

Those truths which, though rugged, have gripe in 
them, have in themselves presumptive evidence of 
their truth. We are to have toleration, but not of 
falsehood, nor that which is founded on indiffer- 
ence to the truth. It makes all the difference be- 
tween life and death, between destruction and sal- 
vation, what a man believes. Because a man 
sincerely believes there is no chasm before him, 
when there is one there, will God the sooner save 
that man's neck if he goes forward ? 



Most of the religious controversies are of details. 
The great denominations now stand apart from each 
other on grounds which, by their own general con- 
fession, do not touch the individual Christian cha- 
racter. 



Jf there was no grit in a grindstone, how long 
would the axe be in grinding ? and if affairs had no 
pinch in them, when would there be made a man ? 
How can a man walk by faith, unless compelled to 
go where he cannot see ? 



The most powerful way of teaching truth is to 
show what it has done for vou. 



278 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Sentimental aspirations after goodness may be 
very well in their way; but it takes more than 
these to make a saint. A man (or a woman) may 
sit and read the Bible all day, and cry over it, and 
think how precious and holy it is, and how good 
God is, and then may go away and pray all night ; 
but if the reading, and reflection, and praying, 
don't make a better man of him — if their eff*ect is 
not to brighten and sweeten his disposition, and 
make him more kind and loving to God's creatures 
that are in his company, or in his power — if he can 
shut his Bible, and turn with scowling brow and 
unpitying heart to the orphan or the stranger within 
his gates, he has the very spirit of the Pharisee. 
He that loves God let him love his brother also. 



God works by the church just as far as he can, 
but when she makes herself stiff or shallow, his 
workings overflow and run in a hundred ducts be- 
sides. 



Those who think that the whole army of human 
deeds must go roaring through the thoroughfares 
of life whelming men in the general rush, and that 
no Sabbath notice must be taken of it — who make 
the pulpi^j too holy, and the Sabbath too sacred, to 
be used in bringing individual courses and develop- 



LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 279 

ments of society to the bar of God's word for trial, 
are the lineal descendants of those Jews who con- 
sidered the Sabbath so sacred that our Saviour 
desecrated it bv healino; the withered hand. Would 
God he could appear to his church in this our 
day and heal withered hearts. 



The world was made what it is that you might 
be made what you ought to be. Tour daily duties 
are a part of your religious life just as much as 
your devotions are. 



Because our impressions are right we have no 
business to flash them, impreparedly and unad- 
visedly, in the faces of men. 



The firm skull must conform to the growth of the 
brain, the softest mass in the whole body. So laws 
and institutions, however hard they may seem, must 
yield and fashion themselves according to the 
OTowth of the national character. 



When God means to make a man useful in the 
world, he generally sends him first through fire — 
be puts him into the forge and onto the anvil — and 
'^ften he chastens most whom he loves best. 



280 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Men confound earnestness and solemnity. A 
man may be very much in earnest and not be very 
solemn; or he may be awfully solemn without a 
particle of earnestness. A solemn nothing is just 
as wicked as a witty nothing. A man may be a 
repeater of stale truisms, he may smother living 
truths by conventional forms and phrases, but if he 
put on a very solemn face, and employ very solemn 
gestures before an audience of sound men — men 
soundly asleep, at least — that will pass for decorous 
handling of God's truth. The difference between 
Christ and his contemporary teachers was that he 
spoke live truths with the power of his own life in 
their utterance. The rabbins spoke old orthodoxy, 
dead as a mummy ; but they spoke it very reve- 
rently ; they never violated any professional propri- 
ety ; they never forgot how to move, how to speak, 
how to maintain professional dignity. They forgot 
nothing except living . truths and living souls. 
What if they did not do any good ? What if every- 
body died about them ? What if they never had 
any fruit? They charged that all to divine sove- 
reignty. 

Young Christians often get discouraged, and 
think that they bear no fruit, and shall be cut off. 
They see that Christ promised his disciples that 
he would dwell in them, and that they shall bear 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 281 

much fruit. Christ did not mean that fruit should 
come at once, all ripened. Remember to whom he 

spoke men who were for years after this getting 

it through their heads that he was to die for them. 
It was twenty years before the fruit grew upon 
them that we find clustering in the epistles ; and 
then only two or three of them had anything to do 
out of their own time. 

When the gardener looks in the spring to see if 
the branches of his vines are alive, he is satisfied if 
he sees the tip of the most tiny bud — he don't call 
that a dead branch. There was but one of the 
disciples that seemed much changed for the better, 
during the life of Christ — that was John. He was 
one of those persons who, soft and velvety outside, 
have in them a core of granite^ who, under a 
smooth aspect, carry the charge of thunder. He 
was the one who wanted to call down fire from 
heaven to burn up the people who had off*ended 
his Master. His aff'ections, when not disturbed, 
were tender and sweet; but thwarted, he grew 
bitter as 2:all. Yet he came at last to that 2:entle- 
ness of character, by which he is now known ; and, 
after a score of years, grew able to pen those fer- 
vent letters, so remarkable for ringing all the 
changes of love. Indeed John seems to have forgot 
everv word in the lan^ua^e but '' love." It is not 
in one year, nor five, nor ten, that^^ou will ripen. 



282 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

But you are dissatisfied, and you sit down and 
try to think how Christ looks, and try to feel that 
he is with you ; and you take the Bible, expecting 
that now you are converted, it will shine out at you 
like a house whose windows are illuminated. 
Christ will not reveal himself to you in that way, 
and that is not the manner in which the Bible will 
be a light to you. You must mak^ it " the man of 
your counsel." What a word is that! what an 
idea it gives you of how you should use the 
Bible. 

A. man ofl:ers you a note. Tou are not quite 
sure about it. Tou say to him : " I don't know. 
Hold on ; I'll let you know in half an hour ;" and 
away you run, round the corner. Tour lawyer 
lives near by. Tou show him the note. " Such a 
one offered me this. I thought I'd just speak to 
you about it. What would you do?" "Better 
have nothing to do with it," says the lawyer, shak- 
ing his head. Tou run back, and say to the man : 
" I've concluded not to take that note." 

Then some transaction is urged upon you. You 
hesitate. Tou don't know exactly whether it will 
stand in law : " Wait," you say, " wait a minute — 
I can't decide yet," and away you go, round the 
corner. "Oh, yes," says your lawyer, "that's all 
perfectly right and safe ;" and back you run, and 
the matter is settled. He is the "man of your 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 283 

counsel." Just in this way should you consult the 
Bible, in regard to all the actions of your life. You 
may read all your life in it, and never get the 
meaning out of half its texts ; for I think that 
many texts of Scripture are long in their periods, 
like comets, and only cast their light upon us 
when the appointed time comes ; but unlike the 
comet, when once they have risen upon our hori- 
zon, they leave it no more, but their splendor 
burns on bright unto the end. There are texts 
which I got into twenty years ago, and I'm not half 
through them yet. 

Christian graces are not in the Bible. The 
Bible tells us what they are ; but it is in the strug- 
gle of life that we are to find them. A book of 
tactics is good to teach the soldier evolutions, but 
it is the parade ground and the battle-field that 
makes veterans. Men can m ake an idol of the Bible. 



Each one of our faculties, when well cultivated, 
becomes an interpreter of God, a window through 
which we can look out and see God. Take benevo- 
lence ; in its natural state 'tis mere good-nature, 
not much of a window then ; but when you have 
exercised and trained it, until you see tlie inter- 
est of another lying side by side, on tlie same 



284 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

plane with yours, and can choose that first, doing 
good to another rather than to yourself ; when you 
give up rest, and comfort, and health itself ; when 
you uncomplainingly endure martyrdom and cruci- 
fixion for the sake of your nervous, and sick, and 
fretful children, who have wound you up, and run 
you down, and almost worn you out, then your 
benevolence shows you what kind of feeling was 
Christ's when he suffered and died for you. 



It is all very well to have a minister to preach 
about religion ; but you get used to him. I stand 
here, and say over and over to you the same things 
till I wear the year smooth. Every Christian who 
has come to a realization of Christ, is a natural 
and appointed preacher of him. You all know 
what is the effect here, when from one part of the 
room and another, men rise to corroborate each 
other's witness to the truth and effects of religion. 
Kow, if the church would make the week a witness 
that should answer back and confirm the Sabbath ; 
if you, in all your places of business, about the 
streets, everywhere, would but corroborate, by 
word and deed, in spirit and in truth, all the truths 
that I utter from the pulpit; if the young convert 
would call to the companions that he has left in the 
world, and the more advanced Christian would 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 285 

encourage the young one, and the white-haired 
saint again stand on the heights, and call : " Come 
up, come ; from where we stand can be seen the 
gates of the Holy City," how would the influence 
of the oliurch be felt, and how would be hastened 
the conversion of the world ! 



"When we begin to climb a hill, 'tis hard work ; 
we begin to puff, our legs begin to ache, and by 
the time we reach the top of the hill, we are pretty 
well tired out. But once up, we begin to descend, 
and now we wonder that we could have made so 
much ado about our climbing. We resolve that 
we never will do so again. And we shall not until 
the next time. But when another hill is to be 
ascended, it will be the same thing over, unless we 
resolve with something more than the ordinary 
firmness of men. 

There are hills in the moral as well as in the 
natural world, and we manage worse about the 
former than the latter. 



How few people there are who have a ' really 
trusting spirit. 'Tis easy enough to trust, in regard 
to things you don't care anything about ; but upon 
the point where you are most sensitive, how far do 



286 LIVING- WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

you trust in God, and not worry? Have you, 
within five years, learned to trust yourself and 
your property, and the health and life of those 
dearest to you, with God, in a settled confidence 
that he will do what is best with all ? And^can you 
be cheerful in this trust ? The husbandman goes 
often to examine whether his fruit ripens fast. Ton 
are spiritual husbandmen, and should do likewise. 
It is astonishing, as one walks the streets, to see 
how few good-looking ^people there are, Yery rare 
is it to see a luminous, transparent face, open and 
trustful. There are such natures, but they are 
rare. There are some people that can trust God 
about everything, but their soul's salvation. 



When a hunter goes out to hunt, he seldom finds 
all that he hits. But going about the woods the 
next day, he finds here a buck, there a turkey, and 
something else elsewhere. "Ah!" he says, "I 
thought I brought down more game than I found 
yesterday. Here it is now." As I go about the 
country lecturing, I am so frequently being met by 
persons who say to me, shaking my hand : " I was 
converted among you. I have reason to know 
YOU, though you don't know me," that I am begin' 
ning to feel that, on these jaunts, I only go a little 
wider into my own field of jurisdiction. Lately I 



LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 287 

was struck bj the gratitude and humility of a 
mother whose son came last winter to jSTew York. 
With parting injunctions and prayers, the mother 
very earnestly warned her boy to keep out of dan- 
gerous places ; and, especially to be sure and not go 
near that wicked place, Henry "Ward Beecher's 
church. She made this such a particular object of 
her caution, that, of course, the young man came. 
He was converted, and returned to his mother so 
changed, that she, too, was converted. When I 
was there, she, from gratitude, had gone over as far 
one way, as she had been the other ; and was feel- 
ing very bad to think she had judged ill of one, 
who, since he was the instrument of her dear son's 
conversion, must be so very good a man. I do 
feel that the influence of this church is wide. 
There will hardly be, ere long, a town in the land 
that will not have branches from us. How luimble 
and how careful ought they who exert so wide- 
spreading an influence to be. 



When I dig a man out of trouble, the hole that 
he leaves behind him is the grave where I bury 
my own trouble. 

There are some assertions of Scripture which 
imply high attainments in the whole round of 



288 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Christian character. " If auy man offend not in 
word, the same is a perfect man ;" that is, if a man 
has obtained that self-command which shall enable 
him never to say a wrong thing, the battle with 
him is nearly over. He may reckon it already won. 



'' God so loved the world that he gave his only 
begotten Son," etc. The life and death of Christ 
was but the working out of the love of God. The 
affection and the yearning of heart towards his 
erring creatures, was just the same in God before 
Christ came, that Christ showed it to be while he 
was on earth. It is just the same still. There is no 
change in God, or in his love. Man, nor woman, 
need fear disappointment there. It has been the 
custom of some, a custom too much prevailing, to 
represent God as being under no manner of obliga- 
tion to do anything for his creatures after they had 
broken his law. The trouble with this statement is 
that there is a great deal of truth in it ; and yet it 
has been made in such a manner as to give a very 
wrong impression. In God's own nature there is 
a necessity for his efforts for man's redemption. 
Where is the earthly father, worthy to bear the 
name, who would not feel that it was as much his 
duty as his desire to do all in his power to restore to 
the paths of honor and honesty a child who had 
fallen? And, shall we imagine that God, the Infl- 



LIVING WORDS FPwOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 289 

uite Father, is under less obligations to do good to 
the creatures he has made than we are ? or that the 
laws by which his nature are governed are directly 
the reverse of those which he has imprinted in our 
souls ? '' God is so great !" say some ; and they 
hold up that greatness — sincerely desiring to show 
forth his praise, though mistaken in the thing 

. wherein lies his greatest glory till they seat 

him on a throne so high that no man can touch 
even its base ; till they cut him entirely off from 
man's sympathy. They say he might have justly 
let the world alone, after its revolt, and have con- 
cerned himself no more about it ; and they declare 
the love and mercy which refused to do so, past 
finding out — a mystery of love at which mortals 
should forever wonder and adore. Yes, he might 
have let his rebels alone, in such a way that there 
would have been no propagation of the condemned 
and hopeless race ; but that he did 7iot do this, can 
any heart that is a parent's marvel? Man ca7i 
understand God, when God has given, in his own 
breast, the key which can unlock his mysteries — 
made in the image of God, 

God is great ! but in proportion to his greatness 
is his love, and his obligation to do good. No 
being in the wide universe is so marked out and 
belted around with ''ought" — with obligations to 
rectitude, as is the Almighty. 

N 



290 LIVING WOEDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Because he is mighty and high is not the reason 
why he has a right to make conditions, and mark 
out the bounds of men — but because his wisdom 
and his goodness are so great. It is for their own 
sake^ as well as for his, that God would have men 
serve him ; for all good and all happiness are inevi- 
tably connected with his service. This is in the 
nature of things. He loves every one of us with a 
warmer and heartier love than that which it is pos- 
sible for the fondest of our human friends to feel for 
us ; and all his desires and all his commands are for 
our eternal good. His help is so often promised 
that men have got an idea that it is some nearly 
impossible thing one has to do in order to become 
a Christian ; but this is wrong. The help that we 
need is already with each one of us. In every 
man's hand God hath put a price with which to get 
wisdom, and if he does not obtain it, he will have 
none but himself to blame. We are asked to do 
nothing but w^hat we can do, and do do every day, 
only not towards God. "Who does not often feel 
the sense of guilt ? "Who is there that has not often 
regretted a wrong act ? Who is there that has not 
faith in things unseen ? Who is there that has no 
power to love that which is lovely ? 

My hearers, if it should be that any of you stand 
unfriended at the judgment, unclothed and shiver- 
ing before the Judge, it will not be his voice alone 



I 



LIVING WORDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 291 

that you will hear pronouncing sentence against 
you. Your own understanding, your own conscience 
and social affections, even your own worldly wisdom, 
will cry out that your ruin was needless, that it was 
only because you would not that you was not saved. 



The more refined and elevated men are, the more 
sensitive are they — the more is expected from them. 
A thing that you would pass without notice in a 
low, ignorant person, you would expect and de- 
mand apology for in a person higher on the social 
plane. Man, as well as God, exacts from man 
according to that which he hath. 



The present time with men, is as the sight ol a 
rifle. They look through it to see what is before 
them. 



Changes of motive and purpose are often in- 
stantaneous ; but it may take years to get all the 
conduct in exact as-reement with that chanwd 
mind. Suppose that the men on board a pirate 
vessel began to falter in their purpose, and to talk 
to each other about becoming honest seamen. By 
and by, having consulted all but the captain, they 
conclude to refer the whole matter to hini ; and if 



292 LIVING WOEDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

he consents they will all abandon the life of 
pirates. 

They surround their captain, and make known to 
him their thoughts. " The whole thing depends on 
youj captain; what do you say?" 

The captain thinks and thinks — he shakes his 
head. " I don't know, boys, about this. If we be- 
gin to be honest men, we must hold out so ; and 
perhaps we can't. And then we may get caught 
and punished for what we have done. Still, I don't 
know. I guess we will give up this way of life — we 
— I suppose we hadhettev decide to do so — we wilL^^ 

It was done — at that instant the men had ceased 
to be pirates. True, the black flag still swung from 
their mast ; the last blood was hardly washed from 
their decks ; they had been fitted out to attack and 
plunder the West Indian islands; and they were 
still full of the implements of death. But no mat- 
ter, they were no longer pirates, any more than 
when they had pulled down the flag, cast away 
their weapons, and entered upon their lawful voyage. 



The Lord's Prayer stops at " deliver us from 
evil." The doxology, though excellent, is gener- 
ally admitted to be an interpolation. "Who may 
pray? May the Christian? certainly. It has been 
considered that prayer was a privilege peculiarly 



LIVING WOKDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 293 

that of the saint. This is an error. Whoever has 
a icant^ may pray. Has not the man in the fire 
or in the flood, a right to cry out for heljD, regard- 
less of his character? What! may the sinner ad- 
dress God? Well, if "the sinner" may not, who 
in this wide world may ? But " the sacrifice of the 
wicked is an abomination to the Lord," says Scrip- 
ture. That passage has been wrested till it has 
been made the means of the loss of many souls ; it 
has gone up and down the earth, destroying like a 
sword. It is the hypocritical sacrifice that God 
abhors. No earnest heart-sent cry is displeasing to 
him. When a man who would twist his neighbors 
neck for gain, or who for it would thrust his arm 
up to the shoulder in blood, who loves and means 
to continue in the indulgence of riot, uncleanliness 
and wassail, makes his sacrifice, or ofl^ers his prayer 
for the sake of covering his real character ; or, say- 
ing in his heart, '' There ! I hope that's enough to 
keep me safe " — that is the abomination of which 
the Bible speaks. 

How should men pray ? If any man can best 
approach God, and open his heart to him by means 
of prearranged prayers, in God's name, allow him 
to use them. But the spontaneous utterance of 
thought, feeling and desire is best suited for 
specific cases. Printed prayers are generic. 

By his conduct and liis relations, Christ taught 



294 LIYINa WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

that it was God's pleasure to be taken firm hold of 

by the soul in prayer. He faught us plainly that 

there are some things which he will give to his 

children if they will plead for them long enough, 

and with sufficient intensity of desire, and which 

otherwise they shall not have. He enjoined it 

upon us that in prayer we should be, to the last 

degree^ earnest, constant, and importunate. But 

God wants no man to make watch-preparation for 

communion with him. Don't look at your watch, 

and say, '^ It's noon, or it's six o'clock — I must go 

and pray — whether you've anything to say or not. 

Some men pray three times a day ; they have three 

regular hours. If this suits their case let them do 

it. Others pray regular oral prayers but once a 

day. There are some birds that sing when the sun 

rises, and then they are done for that day. All 

Christians ought to be much in prayer. They 

should even in secret pray with the voice — for 

the voice helps to fix the thoughts; and no man 

will ever grow much in the grace of praying who 

prays in his heart only. Social prayer also is a 

duty and a benefit to the Christian ; but, above all 

things, let them strive to be sincere, simple, and 

natural in prayer. Faults of manner in addressing 

God are not confined to young converts — if so, 

there would be more prospect of having them all 

corrected. The young should beware of falliDg 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 295 

into these faults. Don't allow yourself to have 
a praying tone, one much higher or lower than 
that which is natural to you. The moment I hear 
a man go up or down an octave in his voice, I am 
left an octave behind. Then some men's voices 
have a roll, they have a swinging undulation like 
the waves of the sea. All this is very unpleasant 
— even revolting to refined taste. 

When young Christians complain to me that 
their thoughts wander in their devotions, I tell 
them that they pray too much. Pray often, hut 
not too long at a time. I have heard very stam- 
mering, staggering prayers — prayers that broke 
down in the middle, that were yet real, living 
prayers. Far better are such than those whose 
composition is perfect, but in which words have 
outrun feeling. All the first troubles in regard to 
this intercourse and confidence with God will pass, 
and, by and by, the Christian who really desires 
it, will come to live, as it were, in a perpetual 
prayer. He will walk through the days with a 
consciousness that he is '^ naked and open before 
him with whom he has to do," and he will rejoice 
in that consciousness. Every new event, every 
new emotion of his life will be with Iiim an impulse 
towards God. He must tell it there. His confi- 
dences and his warmest gushes of feeling are con- 
tinually lifting themselves up to the being of liis 



296 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

supreme love and reverence ; and this is to " pray 
without ceasing." When the heart of man attains 
unto this state, he can no more be left comfortless 
or alone, though the grave hide all who love him, 
and though a dungeon shut him from the light of day. 
You will frequently need some preparation for 
prayer. "When a man is full of the fretting cares 
of business ; sore, smarting, tormented by the 
untoward events of the day, he often feels that he 
is in an unfit state to enjoy communion with his 
Maker. The mind needs some relief before it can 
settle itself to prayer. With me music is one of 
the best aids here. One deep and solemn strain of 
music is enough to separate as far between me and 
any past state of mind, as the Ked Sea separated 
between Pharaoh and the Israelites. 



^ O, God ! we know not what life in heaven is ; 
nor what disposition is made of occupation there ; 
but we know that whatever here is most bright, 
whatever is most beautiful and lovely, what- 
ever is most delightful in experience and most 
pleasing in sensation, is used to excite our imagina- 
tion of the joys that await thy children, and that 
after all these things are exhausted we are told 
that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. 

* The following passages are from prayers by Mr. Beecher, 



LIVIKG WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 297 

How long, O, Lord! how long? Since thou 
wentest up into heaven, hast thou forgotten the 
earth ? 

Givest thou no more heed to the voice of her 
groaning? 

For eighteen hundred years, since thy departure, 
she has swung round about thy throne, uttering, 
evermore her cries of bitterness and pain. Is it not 
enough ? Oh ! hear the wail of nature, and come, 
Lord Jesus, come quickly. 

Thy coming, and that alone, can redeem us. 
And when thou art here, the waters of bitterness 
will all be turned to sweetness ; and the song of 
earth, as she swings in her orbit, shall be like the 
melody of heaven. 

Our Father, we love thee, though we so often 
grieve thee. Our God, our Saviour, we desire to 
walk in thy love ; why do our feet so constantly 
falter? 

Oh! come unto us, and possess us in every 
faculty of our souls. Abide with us, thou Heavenly 
Guest, and so draw us that we turn from thee no 
more. 

When we look abroad into the world, and see 
what a place it is; see how full it is of jangling 
and selfishness ; of violence, of passion and blood ; 
thy Fatherhood, and our brotherliood unacknow- 
ledged, and men everywhere at strife. And when 
N 2 



298 LIVING- WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

c 

we look within^ and see the evil there : the lurking 
enemies, crouching in secret places, waiting for us 
to lie down in slumber, or to ungird our armor for 
a moment's rest, that they may spring out and 
assassinate us, we are ready to sink down in despair, 
and cry out that all is lost, and that thou hast 
indeed forsaken us. But we know that thou art 
not gone — that thou art not afar off, and that thou 
dost regard the cry of thy children. 

Then, hear us now, O, God ! while we reach 
out after thee, and are sick for want of thee. Come 
unto us with healing, and speak comfortable things 
anto us, and hasten the salvation of the world. 



When the clouds are over us so black that those 
who know thee not, see in 'them only wrath and 
destruction, may we, looking up, behold and know 
that thou art near, and that we are only standing in 
the twilight of the shadow of our God. 



Mat we be over-arched by our faith in Thee ; 
may we stand under it as our shadow and protec- 
tion from all the storms, and sins, and woes of life. 



While we walk through the places of crucifixion 
here, may the thought of our Father''s home sustain 
us. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 299 

Is our home indeed awaiting us ? Art thou look- ' 
ing upon us with yearning, and thinking that the 
time draws near when thou mayest call us to thine 
arms ? Dost thou love us, and long for us, oh ! our 
God? for us, so full of all unquietness and unclean- 
ness, so barren of all loveliness. 

" Oh ! teach us the meaning of that word 
" Love." Teach us, too, that with thee it means 
not less, but more than it does in the truest and 
warmest human heart — ^that our love is as the 
brook, shallow and defited, while thine is as the 
ocean flowing to meet the brook, and swallowing 
up all its impurity as though it had not been. 

May the thought of thy tenderness and pity give 
us courage. May it not encourage us to think sin 
less dreadful, but cause us to hate and shun it 
more ; and yet, in spite of all our oft falling and fail- 
ing, to take comfort in thee ; and to struggle, not 
from fear, and to escape thy frown, but with a great 
yearning to get upward nearer and nearer to thy 
smile. 

May the thought of thy love make sin more hate- 
ful and fearful to us than all the thunderings of 
conscience ever did ; and may it look even blacker 
while we feel the throbbings of thy divine pity, 
than when viewed in the light of thy pure and per- 
fect law. 

Our Father, may grieving thee be the one 



300 LIVING WOEDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

terror of our lives. Teach us liow to love each 
other, and how, hating all sin, to have mercy 
on the sinner, even as thou dost. Look not upon 
our sins, nor enter into judgment against us, for 
which of us could stand one moment before thee ? 



When we are alone and desolate — forsaken of all 
that makes life dear, be not thou afar off. Be near 
us, O Thou who canst make thyself so much more 
unto us than parents, or brother, or sister, or hus- 
band, or wife, or lover, or friend : for these are but 
sparks struck out from thee. They are only names, 
which, gathered and grouped together, mean God. 



To trust in human love is often to be pierced as 
with thorns ; to lean on human faithfulness is to feel 
the broken shaft enter our side ; but no man ever 
trusted in Thy love and found it grow cold towards 
him ; no heart ever yearned towards Thee, and 
stayed itself upon Thee, and found Thee unfaithful 
or unkind. 



We pray Thee that Thou wilt give us grace to 
bear with the troubles that are in our daily life. 
What are we that we should ask to go crowned 
with joy when all through the world there is so 



LIVING WOEDS FEOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 301 

much sorrow ? We pray thee not so much to take 
away our burdens, not so much to lift from us the 
cross, or to pluck away the thorns, as to show us how 
patiently and lovingly to bear them. 

Our days are passing ; O God ! that dwellest 
where they sing who have done with weeping ; they 
whom we buried with tears and anguish, but whom 
thou didst raise again with gladness and everlasting 
exaltation ; and hast given them so much more and 
better than we, in our largest and most ardent 
desires, know how to ask for them, that they, look- 
ing down from their glorious exaltation, see immea- 
surably below them the dust that we have named 
as blessings ; when it shall be our turn to hear that 
call which men name " death," may we, waking as 
children called by mother's voice at morning, see 
bending above us thy face of eternal beauty and 
infinite love, and feel beneath us thine everlasting 
arms, and break into the first notes of that rap- 
turous song which shall not cease, with our head 
upon thy bosom. 

Be with and bless our friends, wherever they arc. 
Scattered abroad in the earth, they are toiling, each 
with his duties and his burdens, and his wearing 
sorrows. We would fain gather them in the bosom 
of our love, O Lord ! and there shelter and give 
them consolation ; but it cannot be ; for our hearts 



302 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

are filled with their own burdens and sorrows, and 
they are powerless to bear even these alone — how 
then shall we help our brothers ; but what is our 
love and pity when compared with thine ? And, are 
they not all beneath the shadow; nay, in the sun- 
shine of thy care ? and canst thou, without whom 
not a sparrow's strength faileth, permit any heart 
that stays itself on thee to be broken by its trouble ? 
Thou wilt never leave us nor forsake us ; and they 
that are ours by love are parts of our own soul, and 
the promise and the covenant is for them also. 
Therefore, O our God ! we commit those united to 
us, yet, by space, divided from us, into thy faithful 
and tender keeping, and we Itnow that they are 
safe. 



OuR"^ souls rejoice, O Thou blessed one! when 
we feel ourselves drawn towards Thee, for it is not 
in us to rise ; and when our thoughts are all tending 
with sweet affection towards heaven, we know that 
there have been solicitations, and that God hath 
yearned for us, and hath sent forth ministering in- 
fluences to waken love, and lift our souls towards 
him. And as the sun doth draw up all vapors, and 
wreathe the mountain tops therewith, so in Thy 

* A Prayer from a Phonographic Report in the American Pulpit, 
by Prof. Henry Fowler. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 303 

high and holy place — yea, towards Mount Zion 
above. Thou, with sw^et and blessed looking, dost 
di'aw our affections ; and our hearts to-day exhale 
towards Thee. 

For though we have not seen Thee, we Ttnow 
Thee, Thou mighty one ! Though we have never 
beheld Thee in outward form and guise, our hearts 
have taken hold upon Thee. 

The hand that was pierced for us hath never been 
laid upon us in our path ; nor have those sacred 
wounded feet crossed our threshold ; but that heart, 
that mind of Thine, the soul of God^ hath crossed 
the threshold of our dwellings ; and with our hearts, 
full often, we have had communion with Thee, as 
friend with friend. 

And in the times of darkness, and of temptation, 
we have wrestled with Thee, even as the Patriarch 
of old, and thou hast given us victories, which the 
tongue may not mention, but which the heart will 
think of with joy and everlasting gratitude. 

In times when affliction seemed to dissolve us — 
when our heart was as fruit about to drop from the 
bough, when there was no more strength by which 
to lay hold upon life, thou hast come, Thou blessed 
one ! and given us strength again to lay hold on 
life, and to be happy in life, and to rise above the 
darkness of personal distress, and the struggle and 
the conflict of immingled evils. We have been 



304 LIVING WORDS FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

fearful of dangers ; but afterwards Thou hast made 
us to laugh, as children laugh when alarmed and 
then looking back, see that it was but the shaking 
of a leaf. And when things have seemed to settle 
around us in darkness, and troubles have come 
thick upon us, Thou hast lifted us up, and put our 
feet upon a rock, where no tide could reach us and 
no wave could dash against us, and no flood could 
sweep with destroying eddies about us, to unsettle 
our peace, or do us harm in thought or feeling. 

And we have been made masters that before 
were servants to our circumstances. We have 
been able to stand undaunted and to beat back 
troubles that came upon us. Thou hast lifted us up 
from sorrows, from violence, from unexpected evil. 
When periods of dismay have come drifting in upon 
us like diffused mist, cold and chill — those days of 
doubt when we could see nothing, when the pall of 
silence lay upon everything, then, likewise. Thou 
hast manifested thyself unto us. Thou hast given 
us, at last, a sweet patience to stand still, and 
to wait ; and we have found that waiting by 
thy side is better than running alone ; and that to 
be empty and weak, for Christ's sake, is better than 
to be full for our own sake. 

We rejoice that Thou hast, in a thousand ways, 
manifested thyself to us in all the desires and yearn- 
ings of our hearts. We have looked out upon life 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 305 

sometimes with joj, and then with a sweet sadness, 
because, after all, there was so little in it that its 
brightness grew dim almost before it flashed its 
brightness forth ; and we have been glad of 
it. 

We thank Thee that Thou hast addressed thy- 
self to us by our nobler thoughts, and redeemed 
the world from emptiness and given it back to us 
when we have yielded it to Thee, crowned and 
glorified. Thou hast made the things that are 
round about us — the very flowers that perish — the 
leaves that wither and drop away, the changes of 
the season — to be the teachers and Thy preachers 
to our souls. 

But these things alone do not content us; for 
they are things of the lower life, and we have 
yearned for that which we have not. We have had 
divine incitements ; we have had blessed inspira- 
tions ; when all that we knew seemed so fragment- 
ary, and all that we were so exceedingly little and 
less than fragmentary ; when we have felt that our 
r.fi'ections were so cold and ignoble ; when from a 
thought of our own ungratefulness and selfishness 
and pride, we have turned to the briglit vision of 
thy love — so sweet, so lasting, so deep, so gentle, 
60 delicate beyond all expression from human 
tongue ; when we have seemed to ourselves to be 
so coarse, so low, so ignoble, that we scarcely could 



306 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

lift up our eyes unto Thee. But Thou, O blessed 
one ! hast been pleased to look upon us out of the 
brightness and radiance of thine own perfections. 
Out of the depth and purity and sweetness of 
Thine own love, Thou hast looked forgivingly upon 
our rudeness, and our hoUowness, our pride, our 
selfishness, our jealousy; and hast uttered to our 
souls promises that we should not always be thus 
— that if we would have faith Thou wouldst 
have patience ; and that Thou wouldst bring us on- 
ward and upward, step by_step, shining brighter 
and brighter unto the perfect day. 

Lord Jesus, Thou wilt not forsake one word Thou 
hast ever uttered. Thou wilt not betray one single 
hope or expectation in our hearts which Thou hast 
ever suggested ; and all which Thou hast promised 
Thou wilt not only do, but exceeding abundantly 
more. Thou wilt outrun our most fruitful con- 
ceptions ; Thou wilt be more gentle than our heart 
has felt in its most raptured moments ; Thou wilt 
be more patient than our utmost conceptions of 
patience ; Thou wilt be more full of love and good- 
ness than our loftiest aspirations. - 

We rejoice that there is in Thee such infinite 
goodness, and such height, and length, and 
breadth, and depth of mercy. 

Still, we are not willing to be sinful, or low, or 
ignorant, or poor, because of Thy goodness ; though 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 307 

we have a strange wonder of gladness that we are 
weak, because it sets forth to iis such glories in 
Thee, thou nourishing God ! patient with us, as a 
nurse is patient with her children ! 

Tea ! Thou hast thyself declared that the mother 
shall forget her nursing child sooner than Thou wilt 
forget those whom Thou dost love. We take the 
promise that is in Thy declarations and we set it 
against the darkness of time and trouble, and 
weighing down of heart with sadness, and we lift 
ourselves by this divine help above them all. 
When, we stand under the darkest cloud, we see 
the bow of promise, and we know that God will 
not suffer the soul that loves him to be over- 
whelmed by any deluge. 

And now may we have these bright days more 
frequently, so that their shining may cast a twi- 
light into the dark days that intervene. As they 
that watch in the night shall behold the glow- 
ing light of morning reaching up the hillsides, 
mounting the highest cliffs, and coming down into 
the valleys beyond, so mayest thou who watchest 
for us, see that the light of hope and the glory of 
God is more and more perfectly enwrapping our 
whole experience. For it is Thy work, blessed 
Saviour ; we are being fashioned by Thy hand, and 
for thy sake, as well as for our own. Thou art yet 
to present us spotless before the throne of Thy 



308 LIVING WOEDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Father, and heaven is to resound with acclamations 
for our sake, and for Thy sake. 

Thou, Lord Jesus ! thou who art mighty over all 
things, and with whom we are fellow-heirs, we 
rejoice that in all the things that we ask for our- 
selves there is also thine own interest, and thine 
own glory and joy enwrapped ! 
. ISTow, we beseech of Thee that Thou wilt speak 
peaceably unto every heart in Thy presence this 
morning, according to our various necessity. If 
there be those here that do not know their own 
trouble, but only know that they are troubled — 
Thou Tiinoioest^ and thou canst enter in, and make 
the darkest chamber of their heart serene with 
light and peace. We beseech of Thee that thou 
wilt sustain those who are bearing the pressure of 
affiction. Thou thyself didst bear affliction for 
them. Thou wert acquainted with grief. And 
may they look up, while their tears flow, into the 
face of Him who wept, who lived, who suffered, 
who died for them and for their consolation. 

Grant Thy blessings to those who are suffering 
the bafflings and trials of poverty. Lord, are they 
poorer than thou wert, who hadst not where to lay 
thy head ? Tet, so far as is consistent with their 
good, alleviate their trouble ; raise them up friends 
and comforts of life. 

Bless all those that are tried in their worldly 



LIVING W0KD3 FKOM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 309 

affairs ; who, whatever way they turn, find fears 
prevailing. Will the Lord be gracious unto them 
that they may not think their life consisteth iii the 
abundance of the things which they possess. May 
they feel that the things of this life and all the 
troubles that harass it pass quickly away; and may 
they also feel that they are not in any wise ruined, 
or overturned. May they lay up their treasures 
where no misfortunes may ever assail. May they 
believe in Him who is rich beyond all bankruptcy. 
We beseech of thee that thou wilt be very near to 
all that are in doubt of mind, and are perplexed in 
their thoughts and belief of things religious. Do 
Thou teach them the greatest of all truth — how to 
love God^ and how to diffuse that love upon men. 
And may they, at last, find encouragement in this, 
that Thou art their God. 

We beseech of Thee, that to all those who are in 
the trust of this life's prosperities, who are sur- 
rounded with friends and comforts, and who have 
been blessed abundantly. Thou wilt grant humil- 
ity, that they may not become proud, nor hard 
and unfeeling towards those who are less successful 
and skillful than they ; and by so much as they are 
above them, may they see to it not only that they 
use their goods, but also their hearts and minds for 
the benefit of their fellow-men. 

Be near to strano-ers in our midst, whose hearts 



310 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

yearn for those wh-o have been wont to worship 
with them. Will the Lord bring them by faith 
very near. And as they meet at the foot of the 
cross, .may they consciously be united to all who 
love the Lord Jesus, and whom they love. 

Diffuse the blessings of the Gospel over all the 
earth. May slavery cease; may war cease; may 
intemperance cease; may justice reign, and love upon 
justice ; and may the whole earth be filled with the 
glory of God ! We ask it for Christ's sake. Amen. 



OuE language is singularly wanting in terms of 
endearment. It is, in this respect, far behind every 
other modern tongue. We have ^'dear," and its di- 
minutive, "darling;^' but when we seek to give ex- 
pression to our affection, we soon are made sensible 
of the extent to which we are straitened. 

Listen to the mother talking to her little child : 
how she is obliged to coin words that shall be ex- 
pressive of the fervor and rapture of her love. We 
must needs be dumb when our feeling rises beyond 
what ^'dear" and "darling" will express. We have 
no word that is equivalent to that which the Apos- 
tle Paul uses in saying to his Galatian Church what 
we have translated merely " my little children." 

We should hardly expect to find Paul, of whom 
we think as of one grave, dignified, and perhaps of 
manner somewhat austere, employing terms of ex- 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 311 

treme endearment, and this to grown-up men and 
women. But such is the fact; and he enjoins upon 
the Christian brotherhood an aflfectionatenesSj a ten- 
derness of loving and of expression that the churches 
of the present time know nothing of, and about which 
they have hardly any conscience. This is all wrong. 
It must all be changed before Christ's reign can be 
on earth as in heaven. 

Men must learn to love each other. Eespect is not 
the word, nor good- will, nor esteem, nor like. They 
must love^ and be neither afraid nor ashamed to mani- 
fest it. 



Christians are, like sweet-scented flowers, of two 
kinds. One kind, as the violet, are ever giving of 
their life to all around, pouring their exquisite breath 
generously, unceasingly forth, whether there are any 
to inhale it or not. The others are inodorous unless 
shaken or pinched, and then they are delicious. 

Many Christians are good when you get at them, 
but they need jnnchinr/. 



I HAVE received and accepted an invitation to 
preach, on the coming Sabbath, to the church of 
Theodore Parker, who is now lying very low, if still 
living, in the city of Florence. 

It is hardly possible to find a man with whose re- 
ligious sentiments and theories mine are more widely 



312 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

and radically at variance. There is scarcely a point 
of theological union between us. 

There are two respects in which he has interested 
me. One is his stand as an anti-slavery man, the 
other because he was punished for using his right of 
free speech. Few things with me come nearer to a 
personal affront than any infringement of this funda- 
mental right. Besides these two, I do not know that 
Mr. Parker and I have any points of sympathy ; yet, 
for some cause, about every two months I am in- 
vited to supply his pulpit. Now I am going. For 
the misjudging remarks that will be made I do not 
care one cent. My business is to preach the Gospel 
of Jesus Christ, and when the way is open shall I 
not preach it there ? Mr. Parker's whole aspect and 
position toward Christ revolts me. I can not read 
his expressions with regard to the Saviour without 
pain. He treats him as a being to he patronized] and 
his manner is toward him as toward one that he 
would slap on the shoulder and call ^' a good fellow." 
I have read in his printed sermons things that were 
so coarse it was difficult to believe that any gentle- 
man could utter them. And his published sermons 
are not so bad as he preaches. There is nothing in 
Tom Paine that is worse than Theodore Parker's 
language respecting Christ. But I am going to his 
people, not in the spirit of one who says, ''''Kciu you 
shall have the bones of sound theology, if you never 



LIVING AVORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 313 

had tliem before." But I desire to present Christ to 
them in all his loveliness and beauty, so that there 
may be at least some souls among them who shall 
see him as he is. I hope you will all pray for me 
and for them. 



If I could never feel ready to die till I felt good 
enough, I should never feel ready. I am very sure 
that if any sensation of approximate perfectness is 
the requisite preparation for death, that I shall never 
be prepared ; for the better I desire to be, and the 
higher my reach after a worthy and Christlike char- 
acter, the more clearly I see how deplorably imper- 
fect I am. It is not when I '' feel good'' that I want 
to depart — far from it. I never long to go so much 
as when I am consciously wicked. The sense of 
what it must be to be unrooted from sin — to be set 
perfectly free from all biasing, prejudicing, and baf- 
fling influences — is never so strong in my mind as 
then; and I long to die as much as ever a man in 
Southern bondao;e long-ed for freedom. 



Ko man has any right to conduct his business in 
such a way that his sudden death would bring bur- 
dens and losses on other people. There may be 
cases where a man really cannot help entangle- 
ments, or when, from inexperience or lack of judg- 
ment, he has brouQ:ht his aftairs into such a state that 

O 



314 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

upon his life the interests of others depend ; but he 
should make all possible haste to extricate himself 
from such a position. 

Honesty and honor demand no less. In every 
transaction of life it is a man's duty to be influenced 
by the fact that on any day or any hour he may 
die. 



Parents often say, " Were it not for my children 
I could gladly depart ; but I desire to see them far- 
ther on their way. They need my care." Our best 
feelings take on a little vanity. We feel our care 
and love to be very important to God in the rearing 
of our families. We take care of our children — that 
is to say, God takes care of them and of us ; and we 
are often a very great hinderance to him in the very 
matter that we think he could hardly manage alone. 
We need not be troubled about dying on account of 
our children, for orphans are, as a class, iconderfully 
protected and advanced in life. jSTot that many do 
not fall by the way, but the promises to the father- 
less are performed in a manner that is amazing. 

A child could bind no name upon his brow that 
would open to him so many hearts as that one word 
" orphan." A motherless girl in a village has a 
mother in every mother there ; and a fatherless boy. 
has the heartj^ good-will and good wishes of every 
father that knows him. Don't be afraid that the 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 315 

Lord cannot take care of 3'our children without help 
from you. 

AVhex you are in the midst of trouble — when you 
feel almost discouraged, and as if you could bear no 
more, take comfort anjj. courage from this thought : 
^'By-and-by this will all be ended, for I shall die.'' 



How distinctly do present days and years stand 
out to our thought ! But when we look backward 
over those that are past, they seem folded together, 
and their events have gone from sight, save here and 
there a memory which, like Teneriffe to the mari- 
ner, stands in the horizon. As we recede from our 
youth, the high-topped years sink down and disap- 
pear ; only the persons and things that we have loved 
remain. 

Whatever has been taken hold on bj the love of 
the heart can never be foro-otten. 



Life is to a ^^eat extent a reiteration. Year re- 
peats j^ear. 



A^'Y such longing for heaven as makes this life 
distasteful, and its duties dull and uninteresting, is 
wrong. Such yearning is carrying the matter too 
far. Our place is not uncertain, one that must be 
hastened for or lost; it waits for us. ''There re- 



316 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

maineth a rest for the people of God." We are in 
this world as heirs who from sixteen to twenty-one 
are held in poverty and hardship, but who, on com- 
ing of age, are to inherit a splendid property. The 
lads say, cheerfully, '^It don't matter; what if it is 
disagreeable being under masters, and enduring va- 
rious hardships now? 'tis but for a few years' pov- 
erty now ; but when we are of age we shall be 
rich enough, and have our liberty." In this way 
should Christians think of and desire heaven, being 
willing patiently to work out and to wait out their 
time. 



The events of days and years do not pass from 
being because they seem to roll away from our mem- 
ory. Like a panorama, our life is passing from our 
sight ; but it only goes behind the scenes. Nothing 
is ever- obliterated, and in eternity it will again pass 
before us, and we shall look upon all our days and 
years when we stand in the presence of our Judge. 
What we paint now upon passing time can never be 
retouched nor altered ; for Life is not as oil-painting, 
which the artist can change or improve ; it is fresco- 
painting, whose colors, laid upon the fresh walls of 
the days, strike in, and are at once set unalterably 
and for eternity. Beware what you paint. 



" That all men might honor the Son even as they 



LIVING ^VORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 317 

honor the Father." If any one^here is afraid to wor- 
ship Christ as Gocl, here is a text for him. If, when 
I appear in judgment, I see lightning in the eye of 
God because I have rendered to another that which 
belonged to him alone, I will take this passage, and, 
holding it up before me, it shall open as a screen, 
many -leaved and ample, to spread between me and 
the wrath of God. It will prove a shield which can- 
not be jDierced. 



I WAS not fortunate with Mr. Spurgeon. I don't 
like to have clergymen who come to hear me preach 
come np after service and talk to me, and I thought 
I would be very considerate and do as I would be 
done by when I went to hear Mr. Spurgeon. But 
he did not understand it. He saw me in the house 
and expected to have me come to him, and my not 
doino' so was construed as a slio:ht. It was^n vain 
that in a note I explained and tried to set the matter 
right. I failed. 

What was still farther unfortunate, Brother II , 

the Baptist (who is said to resemble me, and to whom 

I said more than once, ''Brother IT , 3^ou will be 

the ruin of me, going about and acting as you do"), 
being in the office of a religious paper, compared 
rather unfavorably with mine the preaching of ^Ir. 
Spurgeon. 

In the next issue of that paper was an article to 



318 LIVING WORDS FROM. PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

the effect that H. W. Beecher, supposing himself un- 
known, had in that office commended himself, to the 
disparagement of the Eev. Mr. Spurgeon. This I 
did not see or know of until some time after, while I 
was on the Continent. As soon as we returned to 

London, Brother H visited the office of the 

, and said to the editor, ^' Who do you suppose 

me to be?" 

''Mr. Beecher," was the repl}'. 

"Well, I am not ; I am Mr. H , a Baptist cler- 
gyman, and now will you correct that false statement 
of yours?" 

Of course this was promised ; but the correction 
was short, made in fine print, and placed in an incon- 
spicuous corner of the paper. It is not likely Mr. 
Spurgeon ever saw it. I was very sorry for the 
misunderstanding. I liked him very much, even 
better fcan I had expected, and think him a strong, 
good man, and that he is doing a good work well. 



Every man has need to pray every day, " Lead us 
not into temptation, and deliver us from evil," An 
ignorant man placed in the laboratory of a chemist, 
and amid a hundred pungent and subtle poisons, 
there to prepare his bread, and cook his meat, and 
season all his food, would not be in such danger as 
we are from the untried and unknown powers and 
passions within us. . 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 319 

As much as education and habit has to do with 
our good conduct, circumstances have more to do 
with it. jSTo man can afford to be taken out of his 
circumstances, and no man has a right to say to any 
dehnquent, '^ tried as you were tried, I should have 
stood firmer than you." You might not break in 
the same place where I should break, but you can- 
not be sure that jom would not fall quite as low 
through some other cause. A man may go twenty- 
five years unhating, unrevengeful ; he may go thus 
till fifty years old, and say, " I thank God that he has 
kept me sweet-minded and untempted by those evil 
passions ; I think that hatred and revenge are not 
among the number of my sins.'' Eight; they are 
not. You have never been assailed with any consid- 
erable force at the gates behind which they crouch 
and slumber; you have been pricked on the skin, 
perhaps ; you have been struck at through j'our 
property ; but you cared little for that ; such things 
could not materially rufile your good-will towards 
men. But at fifty-five you are smitten, through your 
daurjhter ; noio you see ichat there is in you. All hell 
is not hotter than vour heart, and the rioht hand of 
murder is not so red with blood as is the hatred and 
revenge within your eyes. Men's hearts, before they 
are proved, are like menageries where are lions and 
tigers, full fed and sleepy, lying calmly down, with- 
out roaring or ferocity ; but they arc lions and tigers 



320 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

still, and hunger and opportunity will prove their 
nature. 



A Farmer digging over his frozen fields turns 
up a twisted knot of something that looks like tree- 
roots. He soon sees that it is a bunch of snakes. 
He touches them with his foot ; there is no motion, 
not a single hiss. He takes them in his hand ; they 
do not offer him the least harm. What then ? It 
is January. The man, inspired by a sudden taste 
for natural history, takes them to his house, saying 
as he goes, there has been a vast deal of nonsense 
written about rattlesnakes. They are a perfectly 
harmless creature. He lays them on the floor in a 
warm room, goes about some other business, and for- 
gets them. By-and-by the influence of the fire is 
felt, and the twisted heap uncoils. The long snakes 
stretch out and bask in the warmth ; they lift their 
heads and look about. Now they glide away, one 
under the bed, one under the table. They are scat- 
tered all about the room, alive, active, venomous as 
death. All at once the man bethinks him of his 
acquisition ; he looks for his bunch ; it has disap- 
peared. But a rattlesnake is. hissing in this corner, 
and another in that ; and now let child, or maid, or 
man dare venture to approach them and they strike 
death to the vitals. 

Inoffensive as frozen snakes seem men's passions 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 321 

until the beat of temptation inflames them, and then 
they hiss and sting to death body and sonL One 
act may ruin the good character of three quarters of 
a lifetime, as one insane or drunken smouch of the 
brush dipped in ink would destroy the most valua- 
ble painting, the work of many years. 

No man knows hoio many ways there are by 
which temptation can reach and overcome him. By 
what he is when he is calm and untried in his weak- 
est points, he can form no judgment of what he 
would become under stress of temptation. Of what 
abominable actions have men been guilty under the 
demoniac influence -of anger, who were fair and hon- 
orable men in their sober hours. To their own as- 
tonishment and shame, and to that of all their friends, 
they have made the discovery that there was in their 
nature the malignity of the pit. 

This capability and liability of evil in ourselves 
ought to make us pitiful and tender-hearted towards 
all evil-doers. Abhor evil, but never abhor a living 
man. Good men sin in this regard, and do not ex- 
hibit the spirit of Christ. They abhor and despise 
the sinner, and render their own goodness hard and 
hateful in the eyes of the fallen. 

Remember that the good man is not so good as he 
seems, nor the wicked man so wicked. God, look- 
ing upon the Church in this relation, has often seen 
02 



322 LIVING WORDS FROM PLVMOUTH PULPIT. 

cause to repeat, " Yerily, the publicans and harlots 
go into the kingdom of God before you." 

Chrisis goodness attracted to him all the misera- 
ble and outcast sinners; how, then, can that good- 
ness which repels be of him? 

There is not a man who has the power to stand 
against temptation unless he lives as seeing Him who 
is invisible. Many may be overthrown by tempta- 
tions through benevolence, gratitude, and affection, 
who could stand firmly against every other attack. 
The longer a sensible man lives, and the more he 
sees of human nature, the more fully he is convinced 
that all his dependence is on God. 

I am not bound to believe that I shall become a 
burglar; I never expect to join the pirates on the 
high seas, nor to do such things as dishonest mer- 
chants and religious editors^ do ; but I feel a con- 
sciousness that, if God held me not up, I should sure- 
ly stumble and fall, and it matters not what a man 
falls over when he is once down. 

This fact of dependence on God is as pleasant to 
me as it was, when a child, to nestle close to the bo- 
som of my nurse or of my mother. 

When a man tells me, ^'Now I have found it all 
out" — a plan by which man can be independent, 
can stand by his own strength, and take care of him- 

* At this time Mr. Beecher probably did not "expect" to be- 
come fi "religious editor." 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT, 323 

selfj I feel as if lie had taken me from the warm 
sunshine in which I clehght, into his parlor, where 
the windows had shutters outside and blinds within, 
and one rolling "up shade and two hanging down 
curtains, and where, if there were ten suns, not one 
of them could get in ; and there I must shiver in the 
darkness, or take what consolation I can get from 
artificial light. 



I A^ willing that a man's preaching should roll 
like bands of music, and that his serried bands of 
arguments should march like lancers, irrovided the 
music and the marching be but the secondary ob- 
jects. The primary object of all preaching at all 
times should be to save men's souls. There are 
many ministers who say, when Sunday comes, ''What 
under the sun shall I preach about?'' and their peo- 
ple, when they go home, say, "What under the sun 
did he preach about?" 



A man's conscience is not built like the hull of 
some ships. They are made in several separate, wa- 
ter-tight compartments, and the ship will float very 
well although several of these compartments are^ 
stove. A man is an open hull from stem to stern. 
Stave in his week-day conscience, and he is stove all 
the way through. A mere Sunday conscience will 
keep nothing afloat. 



324 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

The young make a capital mistake when they 
think that happiness is to be started in life where 
their rich parents are. The salvation of youth is that 
it is poor. Thus it is obliged to toil, and to exercise 
the hardy and manly virtues. 

The poor young man, marrying, feels ashamed to 
take the girl who has always been used to luxury 
home to bare boards and two rooms. But if she 
don't love him well enough willingly to begin life 
with him as far back as he is obliged by his means 
to go, she don't love him well enough to marry him. 
If she is a woman of the royal sort, she will cheer 
him in his poverty by hopes of the better years to 
come ; but she will utterly refuse to let him go a step 
beyond his means for her sake. No man is fit to be 
rich till he has been baptized in poverty. When a 
young pair have struggled along for a few jeais, just 
able, by the closest economy and by all manner of 
careful management, to subsist, they will know how 
to use money when it comes easier. But they will 
never know happier days than those in which, side 
by side, they studied out ways and means for making 
their earnings and their wants agree. I have plenty 
now ; but I well remember that when my wife and 
I arrived at the place where was the first church 
over which I was pastor, the whole amount of my 
worldly funds was eighteen and three quarter cents. 
And for ten years it taas a tussle with poverty; but 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 325 

I beat, and I can bear witness that it was a pleasant 
fight. I have never known, and I never shall know, 
in this world another ten years so happy as that ten. 



The more difficult it is to do your duty, the more 
sweet and acceptable is the offering by that, in doing 
it, you make to God. The harebells that grow pro- 
fusely on the ground are not half so beautiful or de- 
sirable as the one solitary harebell that grows from 
a rift in the rock a hundred feet above the earth. 
When the juices of our duties are our very hearts' 
blood, they make the flowers that God loves best to 
see. 



Every promise that you make to your fellow-man 
goes up and swears before God ; and it matters not 
what the character of him to whom you bound your- 
self, you have no right to break your word, or to for- 
get your honor with him. His wickedness towards 
you, let it be what it may, will never justify you in 
refusing to be as good as your jDromise. 



There are men who are always waiting for great 
opportunities to act heroicall}- . Be heroic in the in- 
cidental and little duties of life. There is not one 
of us that has not passed doors enough for heroic ac- 
tion to have made ourselves renowned in heaven. 



326 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Noble mental states, wlietlier they have any form 
of action or not, and whether they are in obscure 
spheres or not, are truly heroic. 



Oke great reason why we find it so hard to be 
Christians is that our Christian graces are in such a 
low state. If zeal or love were regnant, how easy it 
would be to subdue sins. My friends, sins are like 
hairs, and our zeal is often like a dull razor, and it is 
very hard to accomplish anything with a dull razor. 



The child of fortune, cultured, exquisite in taste 
and sensitive in every moral feeling, sits alone — at 
three and four o'clock in the morning alone. At 
last the longed-for sound, now hated, of the footsteps 
of him for whom she waits, comes to her ear. He 
comes, rude, and red, and round, into the room ; and 
she, with every feeling harrowed, with every taste 
offended, with her whole nature outraged, revolts. 
Yet it was the first love, it was the only love, it was 
the husband of her youth, it was hers ; and she tries 
to forget her revolting, her shrinking, and to meet 
him, to quiet him, to lead him to his disgraced bed, 
to kneel while he snores in his drunken sleep, and, 
amid tears, and prayers, and heart-breaking, and an- 
guish, like an angel of God to him, to implore mercy 
for him. And not her own mother knows it. With 
her own life she is hiding his deformity. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 327 

Now do you tell me there is heroism like that on 
battle-fields or in council chambers ? 



How dreadful the battle is that one must fight 
against poverty, especially if he has to go down in 
life and change his circle in society ! and, hardest of 
all, change it to the damage of his children ! If they 
were grown up he would not care; but they are 
growing up. The boys can take care of themselves ; 
but that the girls should go out into life, and be 
kicked round like foot-balls, is too much. Now when 
a man, out of the midst of poverty, and discourage- 
ments, and humiliations, lifts himself up, and, with- 
out losing faith in God, says to all the world, "I can 
be poor and yet be a man," oh, crown, him! Such 
men are the kings that walk your streets. 



Be charitable and lenient to everybody in the 
world but yourself 



I HAVE seen persons with troubles and cares that 
seemed like those that had fragments of glass in their 
bosoms cutting them, and cutting more and more the 
tighter they pressed them. 



Some say they do not believe there is a devil that 
tempts men to wickedness. They think it docs not 
consist with the o-oodncss of God. l>ut if there are 



328 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

millions of devils in this world that try to prevent 
men from doing right, is it inconsistent to suppose 
that there may be one devil that tempts men to do 
wickedly ? 

Wherever Calvinism has prevailed there civil 
liberty has prevailed. 



No man has any right to wait for preaching, for 
conversion, for revivals. Every man is bound to 
take care of his own case, without waiting for any- 
thing. 

I SHOULD have no trouble, as far as my conscience- 
is concerned, in preaching to the slaves. I should 
tell them that, if they chose to remain slaves, it was 
their duty to obey their masters. The first duty of 
everj^ slave that has the power of his own body is to 
run away. For his encouragement and help in this 
he has the whole Bible, which, like a stationary en- 
gine, is pulling him towards the North Star. And 
if a son of mine were to remain for one rolling 
month in slavery without using all that he had of 
life and strength to escape therefrom, I would write 
against his name ''Disowned." But if any man 
chooses to be a slave, to him I would freely preach 
" Servants, obey your masters," after having first 
preached to the master "Eender unto servants the 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 329 

things that are just and equal." I say I should 
have no trouble from my conscience about preaching 
at the South, but I apprehend that there might be, 
after all, a difficulty about it. A man vrould have 
about as good an opportunity to preach sitting at 
the mouth of a cannon about to be discharged as I 
should have to do it in the Slave States. 

People keep saying to me, "Why do you preach 
these things liere at the North ? Why don't you 
go South and preach them?" Because I am in^no 
haste to be hanged, and there I am sure that my 
ascension would not tarry. You may call it cow- 
ardice, or what you please. Besides, I think I 
preach to as many slaveholders here as I should 
there, because I have slaveholders in this congrega- 
tion that need me. Many of you know of the fail- 
ure of your Southern debtors, and know, too, that 
you did not lose much. Your agent sent word on, 
"I can secure you by taking fifty able-bodied men." 
And you wrote back, "Take them, and do the best 
you can." And your agent, a bold, determined man, 
and you, a mean sneak, went into the slave-market 
and sold 3'our fellow-men. You were both there — 
you as much as he. You are a Northern slave-dealer. 

I knew a good Methodist several years ago who 
had a Christian slave. He couldn't exactly keep 
him, and he couldn't exactly sell him. I have never 
heard what he did do with his cvanirelical treasure. 



330 LIVING AVORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

I NEVER go out of my way to speak of slavery, 
and I never go out of my way to get rid of speaking 
of it. 



There are men wko, to get anything out of them, 
must be drilled, and drilled, and then crammed with 
motives like gunpowder, until at last, if they go off 
at all, they nearly kill you with the rocks which, in 
the explosion, they throw at you. 



Strange, indeed, would be that experience a re- 
flection of which could not be found in the Psalms 
of David. There is not a feeling, nor a shade of feel- 
ing, that has not there its full expression. No im- 
provement can be made. The Psalms are the flow- 
er-garden of the Bible, and some plant may be found 
there for the healing of every wound which human 
nature knows. 



There are fords in every life. When the sum- 
mer dries the river so that we can go over almost 
dry shod, or even when short storms have caused the 
water to rise knee high over the stepping-stones, we 
can trust God without much trouble ; but until we 
can trust him when the waters reach our waist — un- 
til we require the help of the strong, sure-footed steed 
to bear us over — yea, until the rushing waters boom 
and foam hio-h above our head so that we cannot 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 331 

cross at all, we have not learned to trust him as wc 
need to trust. " Though he slay me, yet will I trust 
iit him," should be the language of our souls. 



A MAN cannot trust merely because he ought, nor 
because he wishes to do so. He must understand 
God's true character in order to confide in him. 
There are towers so hard polished that even the fine- 
fingered vine can find nothing by which to hold. It 
tries to cling to the tower, and to grow upward tow- 
ards heaven ; but every breath of wind, and even 
the weight of the smallest bird, unroots and thrusts 
it downward, and it grows twisted and involved upon 
itself. ^ 

It is in the power of the pulpit to present a view 
of God so high, so polished and proper, so coldly 
perfect, that the heart can find nothing by which to 
hold, and life itself may pass in fruitless efforts to 
trust and to love, reaching out and essaying to climb, 
only to be perpetually thrust down and back by 
every touch of disquiet and trouble. The soul must 
be assured of sympathy, of personal regard from God, 
its father, or it cannot trust him. And if there is 
one thing that the whole Bible teaches with the ut- 
most positiveness, it is that God is our father. Men 
rob themselves of the comfort and benefit of this 
truth by saying that he is not, after all, just like hu- 
man father and mother. lie is 7^^)^ just like them; 



332 LIVING AVORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

but the want of likeness is not in his being less to us 
than they are, but infinitely more and better than 
they. This is the way Christ explains it : '' Shall 3^, 
being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your 
children," etc. 



I CANNOT very well imagine a Christian with less 
religion than I have. The most of my religion is 
what God is always doing for me. There are days 
in which, from morning until night, I am filled with 
a grateful sense of the wonderful mercy and goodness 
of God towards me, and then I understand how it 
might be that I, too, could become one of that great 
company which, with harp and song, in eternal rap- 
ture praise the Lord. 

ISTatubal dispositions and qualities are no excuse 
for not doing our Axxij^ though they have a great deal 
to do with the amount of effort required to do it. 



Grace gives no new natural qualities; it stimu- 
lates what is right in us, and represses what is wrong. 



The question of moral ability has for ages exer- 
cised the minds of the Church. We know that, in 
respect to single duties, we are able to perform each 
one ; but, as to the whole round of life, it is the daily 
experience of every Christian man that he is not able 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 333 

to live up even to his own standard of duty. What! 
says one, would God require us to do what is not in 
our power? Well, now, in playing a game at battle- 
door and shuttlecock, I can keep two birds going; 
but, in order to be perfect in the game as my mas- 
ter is, I am required to keep eight birds constantly 
in the air. I try earnestly, with all my strength, to 
do so, but down they go in spite of me. I give up 
in confusion and discouragement, and say, ^' It .is im- 
possible; I cannot do it." "What!" cries the mas- 
ter, '' do you pretend to say that you have not the 
power to do as I do ? Have you not the same limbs, 
and muscles, and sinews, and have you not as clear 
sight and as much strength as I?" "Why, yes, I 
suppose I have ; but then they are not yet trained. 
I see that in me is the power to become perfect in 
this difficult game, but it will take long drilling and 
practice to give me perfect control over my own 
i powers. ■ I can do the thing, and yet I cannot do it 
i now. I can now begin to do it. That is all." 
I But what is it to keep half a dozen birds flying 
\ by one's slight of hand, to what it is to keep in per- 
fect order the whole force" of thirty wild and head- 
strong faculties which every man has, and which are 
all bent on having their own way ? We can, by the 
grace of God, begin to do it now ; but I do not hesi- 
tate to say that, through ignorance and weakness, it 
is impossible for any man to fulfill perfectly the 



334 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

whole law. That is why we have hourly need of 
Christ. He must stand by every one' of us, supple- 
menting our imperfections, for imperfect we shall go 
through life, and imperfect we shall enter heaven. 
So long have I been accustomed to this thought that 
I believe I would rather have it so. I think I would 
rather, instead of walking into heaven by my own 
merits, and saying '' Here I am," have Christ carry 
me in upon his breast, and say ^'Here he is." 



It is not so much what there is in the object loved 
as what there is in the lover that makes the quality 
of the love. The large, generous, royal nature in- 
vests the object of its affection with all noble and 
beautiful traits, and then does homage to the being of 
its own creation. By how much depth, and strength, 
and richness the heart has is the fervor and faithful- 
ness of its love. The pledge of love's faithfulness is 
in the lover's own soul, not in any worthiness of the 
object. 

Grod is perfect in love and faithfulness because he 
is perfect in goodness. The more man or woman is 
like God, the more tenderly and truly will he or she 
love. 

The strong hearts of the world, not the weak ones, 
are the hearts that have been bowed and broken by 
unhappy love. 



LIVING AVORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. ^35 

Men fight against tlie idea of dejDravity when they 
are talking of religion and theology, but they all act 
upon it when they go out to their business. 



The body is so constituted that it rejects with the 
utmost peremptoriness and decision many things that 
are injurious to its health. There are things which 
the stomach will not tolerate for a moment, but with 
violence and indignant wrenching and repulsion it 
casts them forth. So, too, the windpipe, if the least 
particle of food enters it, with instant struggle and 
throe it ejects the intruder. Thus promptly and ef- 
fectually should the soul deal with evil. Xot as a 
woman, yielding, pushes with soft palm the flatterer 
from her but to have him draw more near, but as 
the warrior, finding on his tower a steel-clad foe, 
seizes him, and, spurning him with foot and hand in 
right deadly earnest, casts him from the battlements, 
and sends him rattling through the air and crashing 
to the earth, so should the soul treat every evil thing 
that seeks admission to it. 



QuESTloxs of divine Providence we cannot ex- 
plain. If the New Testament teaches anything it 
teaches this^ that God does exercise a peculiar care 
and oversight of the affairs of those that love him. 

The misery and wickedness of the human race is 
the hardest thinci: to reconcile with the love of God. 



336 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

We cannot reconcile it. No man on earth can look 
at tlie facts of the case and not be confounded. The 
loss of one soul is enough ; but when you remember 
that every year nearly thirty millions of people die ; 
that of these, twenty -nine and a half millions do not 
even bear the Christian name — if you are not made 
of stone, it is enough to turn you to stone to contem- 
plate it. ''What do you do with this truth?" you 
ask. I do nothing with it. ''But how do you man- 
age it with your doctrines?" I don't run away from 
it, but I let it alone. 

"But how do you answer people who come to you 
with questions upon it?" I tell them to let go of it 
when they have got enough of it. Still water always 
breeds trouble and sickness, and if you tarry in the 
still pool of reflection you will turn greener than any 
frog-pond. When you are troubled with God's af- 
fairs, go to work, and work so hard that jom are too 
tired to think. It may save you from infidelity. 
If you are sinking under the trouble of the world, 
hurry about some work for its relief; run out to 
some poor suffering family, and, helping them, your 
stream will clear itself A loaf of bread in a basket 
on the way to a poor man's house is the best cure for 
such questioning and distressed contemplation. Mat- 
ters which we are not able to understand we must 
let alone, if we would have peace. Oar duty does not 
require us to understand God's mysteries, but to trust 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLY.^IOUTII PULPIT. 337 

ill him, and do all tlie good \Ye can to tliose nearest 
us, for soon the night cometh when no man can work. 



No bird of the air and no bee among the flowers 
was ever happier than I in my childhood, so long as 
I could keep my mind from all thoughts of religion ; 
but just as soon as I began to reflect on that I was 
most unhappy. 

There are hymns which now sing to mo of lonely 
evenings when I used to sit on my fathers door-step 
after the family had gone to meeting. The door 
looked towards a pond where was a whole choir of 
untiring singers, and there I would sit, the songs of 
the frogs and the crickets, and the solemn tick, tick, 
tick of the tall old clock in my ears, and I would 
sing those hymns and cr}^, and cry and sing, scarce 
knowing what ailed me, but concluding, on the whole, 
that I w^as very miserable. Then I would creep away 
up stairs to bed, to the great room with the white 
moonlight lying on the floor, so that there I dared 
not sing, and would cover my head with the bed- 
clothes and go to sleep. These hymns are to me 
like a transcript of my unformed, fantastic, imagina- 
tive childhood. 



Vesuvius and Etna represent human life — surging 
up in fire, running down in lava and desolation. This 
has been life's history since the beginning. 



338 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

Would any sane man go all the sowing season 
sowing Scotch thistles in his fields, and then look for 
a harvest of grain? The man that sows to his faults 
and to his vices is sowing; Scotch thistles run mad. 



How fast the years fly ! Eighteen hundred sixty- 
one chased out eighteen hundred sixty. How fast 
then eighteen hundred sixty-two ran down its pre- 
decessor! and now the belted racer, eighteen hund- 
red sixty-three, is out ; and, almost before we know 
it, if I live, I shall be standing in this accustomed 
place rehearsing the lessons of the old year. 



Man is a being that, under all the disguises of hu- 
man life, is carrying the lineaments and likeness of 
his Father; and Christ's teachings are that, in the 
future, under more favorable circumstances, he shall 
expand and develop till his powers shall bear no 
more resemblance to what they are in this imperfect 
life than the morning-glory, the fairest and shapeliest 
almost of all twining flowers, which, when covered 
with blossoms from top to bottom, and wet with the 
morning dew, fills you with surprise as the light 
glances through it, bears to the little round black 
seed from which it is unrolled. Man here is a little 
black seed compared with that blossoming vine, dew- 
wet and sun-glorified, which shall flourish in the 
world to come. ' 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 339 

Methinks that some men who bend and sweat, 
laboring for others, are God's princes, and are to 
stand at the portals of heaven, and unloose the bars, 
and swing back the flashing gates to those who are 
in station their superiors, and perhaps their masters 
on the earth. 



Think of every human creature as a being of im- 
mortality, a child of God, and you will never dare to 
wrono' one. 



Men who have no foundations on moral convic- 
tion are like leaves in the road. They are blown 
hither and thither by the wind ; under this fence to- 
day, and over that fence to-morrow, and are never to 
be trusted. 



Eegard to old age effaces all distinctions of con- 
dition. An old man, though a pauper, is sacred. A 
woman with silver locks, no matter if all her hfe 
long her hand has grown hard in service, is vener- 
able ; and I should be sorry to carry a heart that did 
not instinctively honor and respect such an one. 



One slave in a nation is like one dead rat in a cis- 
tern. 



Cut a wasp in two and his head will crcej) off; 



340 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

but that is of no account, it will never do any harm. 
But put your finger at the other end if you dare ! 

You may cut slavery in two with the sword, but it 
will still have a venomous sting, with which it can 
inject the body politic with poison. There is one 
way to kill a wasp, and that is to smash him. Be 
not satisfied to sever slavery with the sword— grind 
it to powder. 



The right development of veneration is so mucli 
neglected in American families that persons brought 
up in this country are known the world over. "When 
I stood in one of the old cathedrals of Europe, and 
the janitor addressed me, he addressed me as an 
American. "How did you know that I w^as an 
American ?" I asked. He was a little put to it at 
first ; but, after a while, he said there was a peculiar 
way in which Americans carried themselves that 
amounted, as he described it, to a seeming disregard 
of everything in heaven and on earth, and a deport- 
ment which implied that there was nothing to fear or 
to respect anywhere. I was not aware of it in my 
own carriage ; but I began to see, in this respect, the 
contrast between myself and those whom I met. I 
perceived a sort of reserve and respect to usages and 
things in foreign-bred men that I had not. 



I HOLD that a man owes whatever gifts of under- 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 341 

standing and genius God has conferred on him to 
the community to which he belongs ; that, in propor- 
tion as God has made them eminent, he makes him 
a minister of them to others. There is no selfish- 
ness that is so accursed as the selfishness of genius. 



I HAD rather have written one of Charles Wes- 
ley's hymns than to have built the proudest monu- 
ment in Egypt, or to have produced the noblest stat- 
ue that the world ever saw. Though \Yesley, and 
Watts, and Doddridge have died, their sweet and 
almost ubiquitous voice never will die. All the 
sounds will have died out of the sea before their 
hymns will cease their carols and their singings. 
Where there is a weary heart the hymn will sing; 
where there is a sorrow the hymn will chant on ; 
where there is an aspiring soul it will be winged up- 
ward by these hjmms. 



If a book is laid so that a chapter or a page is 
open before jou. in the morning, and you read it 
while you are dressing, it will not be very much ; 
but, in the long run, it will amount to considerable. 
Our mothers used to read and knit ; I don't know 
why you cannot read and button. A page every 
morning is seven pages at the end of the week. 
y You individualize what you read by scraps. What 
I read by the hour I forget by the hour, but tilings 



342 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

that I read by scraps are apt to fix themselves in 
my memory. 



Neyer was a boy more ignorant of money mat- 
ters than was I when I went to college. I had the 
sacred hunger of books on me ; and I distinctly rec- 
ollect asking my father if he would not make an 
estimate of what my necessary expenses would be, 
and then give me that amount, that I might contrive 
to pay all my college bills, and, if possible, save a 
little to buy books with. ''Pooh! pooh!" said he; 
*'I know how it will be. You will spend all your 
money for books, and then come on me for more to 
pay your expenses with." So that project was dis- 
missed, and my bills were paid, and paid liberally, 
by my father, and I had no little surplus. But 
books I must have, and, possessing some gift of 
talking, even so early as my college life, that was 
of service to me, in a few instances, in obtaining 
them. I was sent as a delegate to a temperance 
convention at Pelham ; my expenses were paid. I 
walked all the way there and back, and saved my 
money. I recollect going to Brattleboro' to lecture 
on temperance, and getting, I think, ten dollars for 
it. I walked all the way there, and nearly all the 
way back, and saved my money. I saved the mon- 
ey sent me to go home to Boston with, and walked 
there, spending a little for food and lodging. All 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLY.AIOUTH PULPIT. 343 

tliis money I spent in books; and, before my col- 
leo'e course was finished, I had Paradise Lost, and 
Burke's Works, and many other valuable books — 
about fifty choice volumes. They were my pride 
and glory — the apple of my eye. I had earned ev- 
ery one of them by the hardest kind of labor. I 
think I shall never read any other books as I used 
to read those. I used to look at them, and pat them 
as a mother does the cheek of her child. I felt that 
I had given, if not my blood, my sweat for every one 
of them. 

There is not a young man that cannot earn books 
— that cannot cheat his clothes and cheat the day to 
buy books. And the education of getting the book 
will sometimes be as good as the book itself. 



OxE reason why many persons appear less lovely 
after they are converted than before is that they 
have got new clothes on. A man with new clothes 
on cannot help thinking of himself all the time, and 
he is ill at ease. 

When I was in Ghent I called on the Kins* of 

o 

Belgium. I would not borrow a court suit ; but I 
did consent to get a white vest, some white gloves, 
and a stiff hat. When I got myself arranged for 
going to court I procured a splendid carriage and 
y^ started. All the boys in the streets looked at me, 
and I felt very much like a fool. As I came to the 



344 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYxMOUTH PULPIT. 

king's residence, I thouglit the soldiers knew that I 
was dressed up for the first time in my life in such 
things. I did not know w^hat to say to the servi- 
tors at the foot of the stairs, nor the servitors at the 
top of the stairs ; but I made my way along some- 
how, and they conducted me through the hall, and 
whisked me at once before the king. He is the 
Mentor, the adviser of European monarchs. If you 
were to see him ordinarily clad, you would think 
him a plain American citizen ; but he was dressed, 
from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet, 
in all sorts of beautiful things and ornaments. He 
walked towards me in a very stately manner, his 
sword rattling on the ground at his side, and I 
walked towards him the best way I could. He 
bowed, and I bowed. We talked together, and I 
called him '' Sir" all the way through, and said 
many things I should not have said. 

I wanted to observe court forms, but the very de- 
sire to do so rendered it impossible. I saw that he 
knew my trouble, for he smiled benignantly, and 
seemed to have a fatherly consideration for me. 
Finally, in leaving the room, I ought to have backed 
out. I did go backward for one or two steps, but 
then turned, and whisked through the door face fore- 
most. 

It may seem amusing to think of my blunders and 
awkwardness before an earthly prince ; but I do not 



LIVING AVORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 345 

doubt that the angels laugh to see men walk before 
the Lord in unaccustomed things, and assuming 
strange postures, as heartily as you laugh at this lit- 
tle narrative. If vre expect to have beauty in our 
holiness, it must be not a Sunday dress, but a dress 
for every day and every hour in the week. The 
only clothes that look better the more one wears 
them are the clothes that God aives the soul. 



We are proud of our Saxon blood, but, I think, 
drunkenness is a part of that blood. It may have ' 
many good qualities, but that has been the historic 
vice of the national stock. And in all questions 
which relate to the use of wine, and such things, we 
must remember that there is a stock tendency in us 
towards excess in drinking. In our nation this is 
stronger than in others because we are more excita- 
ble, and love excitement. Our work, our institutions, 
our very atmosphere gives us stimulus ; we crave 
other stimulus. Eno;lish and French men drink be- 
cause they love their drink ; our men bolt their 
brandy, and rinse their mouths with water. "What 
they drink for is excitement. They want flame ; 
they are putting on steam. Drinking with us is so 
dangerous ; it has the presumption of going to excess 
because we belong to the nation that we do. 



Many men may be able to use tobacco with com- 

r2 



346 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

parative safety; but we are a nervous people, and, 
as a matter of fact, with us smoking is apt to lead to 
thirst and drinking. The cup and the cigar are well 
acquainted with each other. The use of tobacco al- 
ways tends to weaken the nerve force and the brain 
force, and in thousands of cases there can be no ques- 
tion that it squanders life by leakage right from the 
centre. And who knows that he is not the one in 
five that will be prematurely destroyed ? Were there 
one single reason for this habit there might be some 
excuse for it, but it is utterly without reason. In 
the first place, you must make superhuman exertions 
to persuade yourself to touch tobacco. It would 
seem that God, when he made that weed, said, ^'I in- 
voke all spirits of nausea and nastiness to stand round 
about and defend it from every touch." It is repug- 
nant to every human feeling; the whole nature re- 
volts from it ; not a single element of health does it 
give you, and the pleasure that is derived from its 
use is, in the main, illusive pleasure. Such is its ef- 
fect as a poison upon many constitutions that the 
struggle of breaking away from it is next only to 
that of breaking away from the cup. If you chew 
and smoke your misery is double ; and if you do but 
one, do not try to cure yourself by doing the other, 
for you will end by doing hotli. On the grounds of 
simple common sense, I ask, is it worth while to en- 
tail upon yourselves unnecessary expense for the 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 347 

sake of a habit that incommodes others, that will 
probably have a bad influence upon your health, and 
that will possibly injure your morals? 

The habit, unfortunately, is no distinction; to re- 
frain from smoking will make you rather remarkable. 



In London, in Schoolbrad's great store, the young 
men have their rooms under the roof where they do 
their work. I visited their rooms ; they were clean, 
airy, and pleasant. Each had a little locker, with 
books and other things, which rendered them home- 
like and pleasant. There was also a dining-hall in 
the same building, and a kitchen, and a laundry. I 
saw the kind-hearted matron that plaj^s mother to 
these hundreds of young men. She nurses them 
when sick, she advises them, she watches over them. 
They have also a lecture-room and a library of well- 
selected books. They are accustomed to invite trav- 
ellers and gentlemen of science and learning to speak 
to them. I went into their drill-room, for they have 
military instruction. Fire-arms and all things that 
are needed are furnished by the establishment. Do 
you suppose that these are worse young men because 
so much pains is taken to enhance their comfort and 
elevate their position ? Do you suppose they are less 
valuable as clerks? Do you suppose they study less 
the interest of their employer? 



348 LIVING AVORDS FROM PLYxAIOUTH PULPIT. 

What are tlie promises given for, if not to cling 
to amid present gloom and distress? Every one has 
faith when things go to suit him, when he can see he 
trusts ; but when all goes wrong — that is, against his 
plans and wishes — he loses faith. Faith is present 
when not needed, but absent when needed. A sick 
man, rising in the night to get some medicine, misses 
his matches. He can make no light, so can't find his 
medicine, and only stumbles over the furniture about 
the room. But, when the sun rises, he sees his 
matches, and about noon he saj^s, ^^Now I'll make 
amendg for last night's darkness ; now I'll have light." 
So he lights his candle. But it was when the sun 
was the other side of the world that he needed the 
candle, and not when it was at its midday splendor. 
So do men use their faith. Out in the country, in 
my little inclosures for them, my hens walk about as 
far as they can ; but when their feet can go no fur- 
ther, they never use their wings to overcome the ob- 
stacle. My doves, too, walk along the paths upon 
the earth ; but when they meet with any hindrance 
to their progress, they spread their wings and soar 
aloft, and wheel in glorious circles through the path- 
less sky, which is all path. So should it be with 
Christians. Let them walk by sight where that 
avails, then spread the wings of faith, and soar be- 
yond all darkness, all unbelief, into those purer skies 
where light is, and perpetual peace. 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 349 

The Christian should not carry a heavy heart nor 
a cheerless face. If a man cannot help looking som- 
bre, solemn, and severe, he may not be to blanie, 
but he should struggle against it. A Christian may 
be behind such a face, but the /ace is not Christian. 



Oh, if I had a voice that could speak conviction 
to the young, I would cry out over every village, 
and over every farm, ^* Abide at home, and seek not 
the unequal encounter of city life. Let the leaves 
still hush you to sleep as they hushed your fathers 
to sleep; let the sun shine upon your brown skin 
that shone upon your fathers' skin. Seek intelli- 
gence, and knowledge, and usefulness, and seek them 
where you are. Let the city, if it needs you, come 
and find you. Dispel the illusion, and its glory, and 
its power, and the lying hopes with which it beguiles 
you.'' Blessed are they that, being born in the coun- 
try, know enough to stay there ! 



The mind is not a unit, moving with its whole 
force in any one direction ; it is rather a confederacy 
of thirty or forty faculties, each one working in its 
own time and way, but no one of them continuously, 
for all our feelings move with inconstant force. 

Like those small insects wliich render nisrht lumin- 

o 

ous, and which, after a yard of darkness, make one 
fiash of light, our foculties are ever intermitting: their 



350 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

action — a long line of inactivity, and then a flash of 
feeling. What men call perpetual sorrow is alter- 
nate sorrow and forgetfulness. It is so with joy, and 
hope, and love. We are incapable of more than fitful 
strength in any direction. 



The life of different people is in different things. 
The scholar or the business man may, at seasons, 
turn aside to domestic and social enjoyments, but his 
meat and his drink are not there. He is never so 
powerfully and sensibly living as when in his own 
congenial field of action. Some persons live most 
intensely in their affections. If there be not light 
and cheer there, all within them is darkness. If 
they be not loved — if they be forbidden to love, 
though they be placed never so high, though they 
be loaded with all the wealth, and honors, and pleas- 
ures of this world, they walk sepulchral and see no 
]oj. They are void and helpless. They fall dowu, 
and seem like persons dying of starvation. They 
are starved. Give them but love^ and it matters not 
what outward gloom overshadows them, they be- 
come like glorious palaces, from all whose windows 
flash lights like glancing day. 



On this solemn and joyful day"^ we again lift to 
the breeze our fathers' flag, now again the banner of 

* April 14, ISGi"). [The next five paragraphs are from the Fort 
Sumter Oration.] 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 351 

the United States, with the fervent prayer that God 
would crown it with honor, protect it from treason, 
and send it down to our children with all the bless- 
ings of civilization, liberty, and religion. Terrible 
in battle, may it be beneficent in peace. Happil}^, 
no bird or beast of prey has been inscribed upon it. 
The stars that redeem the night from darkness, and 
the beams of red light that beautify the morning, 
have been united upon its folds. As long as the 
sun endures, or the stars, may it wave over a nation 
neither enslaved nor enslaving. . . . Hail to the flag 
of our fathers, and our flag ! Glory to the banner 
that has gone through four years black with tem- 
pests of war! And glory be to God, who, above all 
hosts and banners, hath ordained victoiy, and shall 
ordain peace ! . . . Eeverently, piously, in hopeful 
patriotism, we spread this banner on the sky as of 
old the bow was planted on the cloud, and, with sol- 
emn fervor, beseech God to look upon it, and make 
it the memorial of an everlasting covenant, and de- 
cree that never again in this fair land shall a deluge 
of blood prevail. There is scarcely a man born in 
the South who has lifted his hand against this ban- 
ner but had a father who would have died for it. Is 
memory dead? Is there no historic pride? lias a 
fatal fary struck blindness or hate into eyes that 
used to look kindly towards each other — that read 
the same Bible — that luiiig over flie historic pages 



352 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

of our national glory — that studied the same Consti- 
tution ? Let this uplifting bring back all of the past 
that was good, but leave in darkness all that was 
bad. In the name of God we lift up our banner, 
and dedicate it to peace, union, and liberty, now and 
forevermore. Amen. 



I CHARaE the whole guilt of this war upon the 
ambitious, educated, plotting political leaders of the 
South. They have shed this ocean of blood. They 
have desolated the South. They have poured pov- 
erty through all her towns and cities. They have 
bewildered the imaginations of the people with phan- 
tasms, and led them to believe that they were fight- 
ing for their homes and liberty, when their homes 
were unthreatened and their liberty in no jeopardy. 



The habit of industry among free men prepares 
them to meet the exhaustion of war with increase 
of productiveness commensurate with the need that 
exists. Their habits of skill enable them at once to 
supply such armies as only freedom can muster with 
arms and munitions such as only free industry can 
create. Free society is terrible in war, and after- 
wards repairs the mischiefs of war with celerity al- 
most as great as that with which the ocean heals the 
seams gashed in it by the keels of plowing ships. 

Free society is fruitful of military genius. It 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 353 

comes Vy^lien called ; when no longer needed it falls 
back, as waves do to the level of the common sea, 
that no wave may be greater than the undivided 
water. ^Yith proof of strength so great, yet in its 
infancy, we stand up among the nations of the world, 
asking no privileges, asserting no rights, but quietly 
assuming our place, and determined to be second to 
none in the race of civilization and relioion. 



We are not seeking our own aggrandizement by 
impoverishing the South. Its prosperity is an indis- 
pensable element of our own. We have shown, by 
all that we have suffered in war, how great is our 
estimate of the Southern States of this Union, and 
we will measure that estimate now, in peace, by 
still greater exertions for their rebuilding. 



From this pulpit of broken stone^ we speak forth 
our earnest greeting to all our land. We offer to 
the President of these United States our solemn 
congratulations that God has sustained his life and 
health under the unparalleled burdens and sufferings 
of four bloody years, and permitted him to behold 
this auspicious consummation of that national unity 
for which he has waited with so much patience and 
fortitude, and for which he has labored with such 
disinterested wisdom. 

* Sumter, x\j>ril 14, 1>U).'5. 



354 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

There is no historic figure more noble than that 
of the Jewish lawgiver. After so many thousand 
years the figure of Moses is not diminished, but 
stands up against the background of early days dis- 
tinct and individual as if he had lived but yester- 
day. There is scarcely another event in history 
more touching than his death. The last stage was 
reached. Jordan only lay between them and the 
promised land. The promised land ! Oh, what 
yearnings had heaved his heart for the divinely 
promised place ! He had dreamed of it by night, 
and nursed it by day. It was holy and endeared 
as God's favored spot. It was to be the cradle of 
an illustrious history. All his long, laborious, and 
now weary life, he had aimed at this, as the consum- 
mation of every desire, the reward of every toil and 
pain. Then came the word of God to him, *'Thou 
mayest not go over. Get thee up into the mount- 
ain, look upon it, and die. ..." 

Again a great leader of the people has passed 
through toil, sorrow, battle, and war, and come near 
to the promised land of peace, into which he might 
not pass over. • Who shall recount our martyrs suf- 
ferings for this people? Since the November of 
1860 his horizon has been black with storms. By 
day and by night he trod a way of danger and 
darkness. On his shoulders rested a government 
dearer to him than his own life. At its integrity 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PLXPIT. 355 

millions of men were striking at home. Upon this 
government foreign eyes lowered. It stood like a 
lone island in a sea fall of storms, and every tide 
and wave seemed eao'er to devour it. Udoii thou- 
sands of hearts great sorrows and anxieties have 
rested, but not on one such, and in such measure, as 
upon that simple, truthful, noble soul, our faithful 
and sainted Lincoln. jSTever rising to the enthusi- 
asm of more impassioned natures in hours of hope, 
and never sinkino' with the mercurial in hours of 

o 

defeat to the depths of despondency, he held on with 
unmovable patience and fortitude, putting caution 
against hope, that it might not be premature, and 
hope against caution, that it might not j'ield to 
dread and danger. He wrestled ceaselesslj^ through 
four black and dreadful purgatorial years, wherein 
God was cleansing the sin of this people as by fire. 
At last the watcher beheld the grey dawn for the 
country. The mountains began to give forth their 
forms out of the darkness, and the East came rush- 
ing towards us with arms full of joy for all our sor- 
rows. Then it was for him to be glad exceeding- 
ly that had sorrowed immeasurabl3\ Peace could 
bring to no other heart such joy, such rest, such 
honor, such trust, such gratitude. But he looked 
upon it as Moses looked upon the promised land. 
Then the wail of a nation proclaimed that he had 
gone from among us. . . . Xcver did two such orbs 



356 LIVING AVORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

of experience meet in one hemisphere as the joy and 
the sorrow of the same week in this land. The joy 
was as sudden as if no man had expected it, and as 
entrancing as if it had fallen from heaven. It rose 
over sobriety, and swept business from its moorings, 
and ran down through the land an irresistible course. 
Men embraced each other in brotherhood that were 
strangers in the flesh ; they sang ; they prayed. 
That peace was sure; that government was firmer 
than ever; that the land was cleansed of plague; 
that the ages were opening to our footsteps, and we 
were to beoin a march of blessino;s ; that the dear 
fatherland, nothing lost, much gained, was to rise up 
in unexampled honor among the nations of the 
earth — these thoughts kindled up such a surge of 
joy as no words may describe. 

In one hour joy lay without a pulse, without a 
gleam or breath. A sorrow came that swept through 
the land as huge storms sweep through the forest 
and field, rolling thunder along the sky, disheveling 
the flowers, daunting every singer in thicket and 
forest, and pouring blackness and darkness across 
the land and up the mountains. Did ever so many 
hearts in so brief a time touch two such boundless 
feelings? It was the uttermost of joy; it was the 
uttermost of sorrow, noon and midnight, without a 
space between. 

The blow brought not a sharp pang. It was so 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 357 

terrible that at first it stunned sensibility. Men 
wandered in the streets as if groping after some im- 
pending dread or undeveloped sorrow, or after some 
one to tell them what ailed them. There was a pit- 
eous helplessness. Strong men bowed doY^n and 
wept. Other and common griefs belonged to some 
one in chief; this belonged to all. Every virtuous 
household in the land felt as if its first-born were 
gone. Men walked for days as if a corpse lay un- 
buried in their dwellins-s. There was nothing^ else 
to think of, they could speak of nothing but that ; 
and yet of that they could speak only falteringl}^ 
All business was laid aside. Pleasure forgot to 
smile. The city for nearly a week ceased to roar. 
The great leviathan la}- down and was still. . . . 
Eear to his name monuments; found charitable in- 
stitutions, and write his name above their lintels ; 
but no monument will ever equal the universal, 
spontaneous, and sublime sorrow that in a moment 
swept down lines and parties, and covered up ani- 
mosities, and in an hour brought a divided people 
into unity of grief and indivisible fellowship of 
anguish. 

The voice of our brother's blood cried to us from 
the ground, but wc did not hear the cry; but now 
the father's blood cries to us, and that we hear. 



.358 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

As a miniature gives all the form and features of 
its subject, so, epitomized in this foul act, we find the 
whole nature and disposition of slavery. . . . We 
needed not that he should put it on paper that he be- 
lieved in slavery, who, with treason, with murder, 
with cruelty infernal, hovered around that majestic 
man to destroy his life. He was himself but the long 
sting with which slavery struck at liberty, and he 
carried the poison that belonged to slavery. As long 
as this nation lasts, it will never be forgotten that we 
had one martyr President ! 



In a council held in the city of Charleston, just 
preceding the attack on Fort Sumter, two commis- 
sioners were appointed to go to Washington, one on 
the part of the army from Fort Sumter, and one on 
the part of the Confederates. The lieutenant that 
was to go for us said it seemed to him it would be 
of little use for him to go, as his opinion was immov- 
ably fixed in favor of maintaining the government, 
in whose service he was. Then Governor Pickens 
took him aside, detaining for an hour and a half the 
railroad train that was to convey them on their er- 
rand. He said, distinctly and repeatedly, that the 
South had never been avenged, and that all pretenses 
of grievance in the matter of tariffs, or anything else, 
were invalid. ''But," said he, "we must carry the 
people with us, and we allege these things, as all 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 359 

statesmen do many things that they do not believe, 
because they are the only instruments by which the 
people can be managed.'' He declared that it was 
foreordained that Northern and Southern men must 
keep apart on account of differences in ideas and poli- 
cies, and that all the pretense of the South about 
wrongs suffered were but pretenses, as they very well 
knew. This is testimony given by one of the lead- 
ers in the rebellion, and which will probably be 
given, ere long, under hand and seal, to the public. 
. . . The blow has signally failed ; the cause is not 
stricken, it is strengthened. The nation has dis- 
solved, but in tears onl}^ It stands four-square, more 
solid to-day than any pyramid in Egypt. This peo- 
ple are neither wasted, nor daunted, nor disordered. 
How naturally and easily were the ranks closed! 
Another stepped forward in the hour that the one 
fell, to take his place and his mantle ; and I avow 
my belief that he will be found a true man to every 
instinct of liberty ; true to the whole trust that is re- 
posed in him. . . . Where could the head of govern- 
ment in any monarchy be smitten down by the hand 
of an assassin, and the funds not quiver nor fall one 
half of one per cent. ? Our funds stand as the granite 
ribs in our mountains. . . . He who now sleeps has, 
by this event, been clothed with new influence. . . . 
Now his simple and weighty words will be gathered 
with those of Washinizton. . . . T swear vou on the 



360 LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. 

altar of his memory to be more faithful to the coun- 
try for which he died. ... I swear you, by the mem- 
ory of this martyr, to hate slavery with an unappeas- 
able hate. . . . You I can comfort ; but how can I 
speak to that twilight million to whom his name was 
as the name of an angel of God? When in hovel 
and in cot, in wood and in wilderness, in the field 
throughout the South, the dusky children, who looked 
upon him as that Moses whom God sent before them 
to lead them out of the land of bondage, learn that 
he has fallen, who shall comfort them? Shep- 
herd of Israel, that didst comfort thy people of old, 
to thy care we commit the helpless, the long-wronged, 
and grieved. And now the martyr is moving in tri- 
umphal march mightier than when alive. The na- 
tion rises up at every stage of his" coming ; cities and 
states are his pall-bearers, and the cannon beats the 
hours with solemn progress. . . . Disenthralled of 
flesh, and risen to the unobstructed sphere where 
passion never comes, he begins his illimitable work. 
Pass on, thou that hast overcome, pass on. Four 
years ago, O Illinois ! w^e took from your midst an 
untried man; we return him to you a mighty con- 
queror. Not thine now, but the nation's; not ours, 
but the world's. Give him place, oh ye princes ! In 
the midst of this great continent his dust shall rest, a 
sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to that 
shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye 



.1 



LIVING WORDS FROM PLYMOUTH PULPIT. o61 

winds, that move over the mighty plains of the West, 
chant his requiem ! Ye people, behold a martyr 
whose blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for 
fidelity, for law, for liberty. 



All that I have said I repeat. I would not shed 
blood — I would not shed blood ; but upon the guilty 
originators and leaders of this rebellion let the rec- 
ompense of trial, condemnation, confiscation, and ex- 
patriation come. 

Q 



INDEX. 



A 

PAGE 

X Sketch of Henry Ward Beecher i 

A Christian like bread 266 

Acorns and young ministers 61 

Actions based on feelings 46 

A fool's part 187 

A general question , 228 

A grave for trouble 287 

A great contrast 106 

Ahab and Naboth 262 

All Christians should be preachers 284 

All men writing books 51 

All truths not to be spoken in one age 99 

A man better than a king 176 

A man of war 229 

Answered prayers 224 

Anxiety for friends 147 

Applying the knife 192 

A prophecy of the future 155 

Aristocracy destructive to piety 273 

A singing church 14S 

A sound life the best theology 276 

Asps and butterflies 35 

Assurance of faith 256 



364 INDEX. 



PAGE 

Balm in nature for sick hecarts lOU 

Battlefields of the world 53 

Bear your weight on God 40 

Best way to teach truth 277 

Be sure of the path '. 260 

Betraying Christ to rhetoric 181 

Be true to virtue, honesty, and piety 266 

Boys in the limbo of vanity 42 

Blue sky in Wall street 250 

Bright days and dark ones 276 

Brown, Brothers & Co 189 

O 

Calvinism the safeguard of freedom 83 

Camping on the edges of sin 105 

Carrion natures 39 

Casting one's care on Christ , 26 

Change of motive and purpose instantaneous 291 

Christian graces not in the Bible 283 

Christians not required to give up the pleasures of this hfe. . . 77 

Christians must learn to bear prosperity 92 

Christianity should rule in politics 226 

Christianity too shallow in churches. 73 

Christ and the woman of Samaria 71 

Christ pardons before rebuking , 30 

Christ spoke most to the poor 71 

Christ the foundation of Christianity 180 

Christ the standard of perfection * 239 

Christ to have all 26 

Climbing hills , 285 

Come up hither 148 

Commentators. ,, 170 

Common things dearest to Christ. 73 

Conscience rotting 45 

Creation's centre jewel 186 

D 

Dark lighthouses , 114 

Deacon's office 183 



INDEX. 365 

PAGH 

Dead , 270 

Death God's call 274 

Declaring God's whole counsel 52 

Descendants of the Jewish bigots 278 

Difference between a Christian and a worldling 220 

Discontent 66 

Doctrines 177 

Doing evil by proxy . 267 

Don't expect other people's experiences 222 

Don't fret 56 

Duty of rejoicing 157 

Dyspepsia of books 41 

E 

Earnestness confounded with solemnity 280 

Easy working better than much working . . . 172 

Election and reprobation .... 238 

Emasculating religion 203 

Encouragement to young Christians 280 

Escapeless gaze of the Almighty 235 

Equal evidence of design for pain as for pleasure in this world 151 

Extremes meet in a common blunder 198 

Excitements in religion right and desirable 214 

F 

Faces 162 

Fall of bad men final 113 

Falsehood in love 271 

Fiddles, men not 154 

Fighting faults 154 

Figure of the wheat 64 

First love not best ... 41 

Flies of humanity 160 

Flower stores of Paris 145 

Frozen ship and the Spirit of God .... 103 

G 

Giving one's self for another 21U 

God willing to give good gil'is 29 



366 INDEX. 

PAGB 

God, honor towards 29 

God feels our conduct 30 

God works by means 198 

God the servant of man , 230 

God's glory his goodness 219 and 234 

God's hatred of slavery 85 

Godship of Christ 26 

Good advice 195 

Good and bad women 261 

Gospel, two vie ws of the 25 

Grace must be burnt in 172 

Grace, nature blossomed out 166 

Graces growing ripe 168 

Gradual growth of Christian character 212 

Grain at the end of harvest ... 34 

Greed and covetousness 268 

Greedy for wealth 83 

H 

Happiness not the end of life 159 

Hatred man's strongest capacity 183 

Hardness good for men 211 

Head faith and heart faith different 274 

Hell in the heart 235 

Hell real and necessary 104 

Heroic women 188 

Hidden troubles worst 233 

Horror of death 194 

Hours like sponges 104 

How to think of heaven 54 

How conviction sometimes comes 146 

How to test the truth of Christianity 58 

How men glory 244 

How they should glory 244 

How men are prepared for usefulness < 279 

Human nature should shun dangerous passes 274 

I 

Impoverishing the soul for the sake of gain 238 

In danger men call on God 168 

Infidels are workinp^ for God > 209 



INDEX. 367 

PAGB 

Infidels and fixed laws 206 

Influence on social intercourse of a belief in the immortality 

of man % 41 

Is conscience our punisher ? 252 

J 

Journals the devil's vanity trap 38 

Journal of God , 95 

Judge not by appearances 237 

Judging of Christians 60 

li 

Lecture room, the xxxix. 

Life a concatenation 41 

Lightning rods 234 

Living in Gethsemane 45 

Living altogether in the affections unsafe 51 

Longing for life 156 

Look out along the banks of life 154 

Loving God in Christ — studying a picture. ....... 31 

Loving men makes them ours 47 

Love to God the only right motive of action 106 

Love the only ground of perfect union 178 

Love's labor — basket making 82 

M 

Make God to suit your need 205 

Making a dead letter of the Bible • 243 

Man not required to understand God's mysteries 174 

Mean conversions 269 

Measuring by God 33 

Meeting in heaven 217 

Men not to be judged by Sunday conduct 250 

Men must be more than indexes 73 

Men too refined for God 51 

Men of one idea 44 

Ministers should mingle with the masses 76 

Mirth the wine of life 222 

Monday versus Sunday 112 

Moralitv a short cable 17-? 



368 INDEX. 

PAGB 

Morality compared to a ship 219 

Most dangerous sins ol 

Most expected from those who have most 291 

Motives not always required to be unselfish 27 

Mourning garments 47 

N 

Natural faculties blossomed 52 

No creature so impotent as man 276 

No defining classes of feelings 41 

No happiness apart from God 30 

No man can do another's work 79 

No man can live unto himself 177 

No quiet for the soul of man 273 

No religion in the Bible 167 

Not afraid of a laugh 270 

Not good to see too much of men 99 

O 

One virtue 154 

Only the hopeless may hope 235 

Opposing ideas of Christianity, 256 

Oregon pines 66 

Our actions affect God's happiness 29 

Our churches growing pure 228 

Our faculties interpret God 283 

Our hour of rest 230 

Outward and occasional morality 85 

P 

Pain purifying 162 

Passages from prayers 296 

Paul's conversion 50 

People not apt to confess besetting sins 189 

Perfect love ^4 

Persecuted, but not forsaken ' 160 

Phonographic report of a prayer 302 

Pictures for eternity 213 

Planting seeds by singing 148 



INDEX. 369 

PAGE 

Poor and rich saints contrasted 94 

Prayer G7 

Praying into nothing 114 

Praying tone . . 295 

Praying, too long 295 

Preparation for prayer 296 

Prodigality of God 183 

Pushing the rock the wrong wny 110 

R 

Raphael's transfiguration 249 

RcaUty of God's love 231 

Reason like a telescope 42 

Reckoned with the children of God 225 

Refined, yet unchristian -. 43 

Reformation not religion 105 

Rehgion, a need of the soul 37 

Rehgion the bread of hfe 275 

Religion the warp and woof of life IGS 

Rehgious and family affection compared 100 

Religious controversies 277 

Remarks respecting a new church 243 

Rest on the promises 2G 

Revelations 35 

Ridicule, men impervious lo 30 

Right between the right persons 233 

Right doing should be involuntary 251 

Right living more than abstaining from sin 115 

Right sort of prayer-meeting 93 

S 

Security of trusting spirits 285 

Self-will prevents conversion 107 

Sentimental goodness 278 

Scruples of good men in regard to ihe indulgence of taste for 

the fine arts 95 

Short of provisions 113 

Sight of a rifle 291 

Sins like undermining worms 30 



370 INDEX. 

PAGE 

Slaveholder's letter 165 

Some doubts never settled 40 

Sorrows like clouds 53 

Sowing seed on a windy day 227 

Strength equal to your day. 163 

Submissive in the affections, but rebellious in business affairs, 

when troubled 241 

Suffering rightly borne 42 

Summer smiting on the store-house of Autumn 255 

Sweetest natures soonest soured 97 



Taking up the cross ^. . 91 

Tear ringing in heaven 28 

Tears often telescopes 52 

Test of a good institution 279 

The church not God's only instrument 278 

The devil's cloak 187 

The family the most important institution 97 

The grave a window into heaven 44 

The law a battery .... Ill 

The leaf in a whirlpool 57 

The man of your counsel 282 

The moral pirate 232 

The preacher's a painful business 63 

The prosperous voyage 218 

The question in the air 165 

The slave and the diamond 223 

The sportsman 226 

The theatre 157 

The vanished years 191 

Things that money cannot buy 261 

Thin souls 113 

Thoughts and reasonings of children — Satan catching wicked 

boys — Andy Chandler, the old Negro servant, etc 199 

Time a beleaguering army 274 

Tormenting one's self with the memory of repented sins 188 

Truth equilibriated 114 

Truth that leaves false impressions 288 



INDEX. 371 

PAGB 

Truths that take hold 277 

Turning the helm 109 



U 

Uncurrent coin 248 

Undermined towers 231 

Unkind words like pins and needles 90 

Unselfishness the surest way to happineFa 46 



V 

Virtues of the moralist 71 

Yolcanic natures 89 



W 

Waiting for conviction of sin 146 

Warning against Plymouth Church 286 

Water-logged by fear US 

Weak love 275 

We shall know of the doctrine 242 

We want to be converted 227 

What is the testimony of your hfe ? 262 

What repentance is 253 

Which crimes ruin most 40 

WhittUng out prayers 43 

Who is wise 173 

Whose are the sheep ? 259 

Who should pray 292 

Why the world was made what it was 279 

Wickedness worse in God than in man 222 

Wisdom and modesty to be used in expressing even our right 

opinions 179 

Wolf-like sin 30 

Woman's yearning for love 82 

Woman more godlike than man 40 

Words are bubbles 187 

Words of Christ 81 



372 INDEX. 

PAGE 

VVork out your own salvation 110 

Worst spectacle of this country 204 

Y 

Ye would take away my Lord. 117 

Z 

Zigzagging to hea ven 259 



ADDED IN LATEST EDITION. 



pa(;e 
A reverence for age 331) 



Bearing the yoke in one's youth 321 

Belief in the existence. of a devil 327 

Calvinism the friend of liberty 328 

Childhood's associations 33 7 

Clu'istians that need pinching 311 

Clinging to sharp troubles 327 

Comfort from the thought of dying 315 

Conscience has no compartments 323 

Costly sacrifices most precious 325 

Crossing the ford^ 330 

Duty borrows no excuses 332 

Events not obliterated 31G 

Feeling ready to die 313 

Fullness of the Psalms 330 

God's princes in disguise 330 

Grace sharpens zeal .'VJO 

Grace transforms, not creates 



oo_ 



Heroism in seclusion :V2i\ 

Honesty in business dealings ;)13 

How to deal with evil 335 

Immortals to be held in cMimation 331) 

Life a reiteration ;U 5 

Life like a vulcanic eruption :.. 7 



374 INDBX. 



PAGE 

Loved ones never forgotten . 315 

Love qualifies its objects 834: 

Man in his maturity 335 

Missed opportunities for heroism 325 

Moral ability to do right , 333 

Mr. Spurgeon 317 

Mysteries of Providence insoluble 335 

No dodging the question 330 

None proof against temptation *. 318 

No waiting for outside help 328 

Object of preaching to save souls 323 

One slave carries the taint 339 

Orphans 3U 

Preaching for Theodore Parker 311 

Preaching to slaves 328 

Reaping what is sown 338 

Religion all of God 332 

Rule for judgment 327 

Sacredness of a promise 325 

The aflfectionateness of the Scriptures 310 

The battle with poverty 327 

The flight of time 338 

The Son equal to the Father 316 

Thought heroic as well as action 326 

Troublesome and dangerous helpei*s 330 

Unexcited passions like frozen snakes , 320 

Unstable men like leaves in the wind 339 

Wait patiently for heaven 315 

What is necessary to trust 331 

THE END. 



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